Eye of the Beholder
by HardlyFatal
Summary: Sandor meets the perfect woman & immediately alienates her. Lucky for him, she's a forgiving sort. If he can make it through her family's vetting process, he's got a solid chance. Sansa meets the perfect man & immediately alienates him. Lucky for her, he has no defenses against her. If she can convince him that she might actually, genuinely want him, she's got a solid chance. COMPL
1. Chapter 1

_Brewed Awakening Caf_ _é, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Second week of November_

There were no empty tables, not one in the entire coffee shop.

Sandor blew out a frustrated breath as he turned away from the cash register, coffee and sandwich in hand, and scanned the place. He never came here for longer than the five minutes it took to buy his food and run back across the street to return to work. But he had just wanted a half-hour out of his damned gym , for once; to hear chattering voices and smell coffee instead of grunting, sweaty men power-lifting in the background.

There was a single table whose seats weren't completely full; just one woman sat there. She faced away from him, her long red hair falling almost to her waist as she nursed a tall cup. He hated talking to strangers. _Hated it_. He knew the reception he'd get, the moment she saw the scars taking up almost half of his face. She'd be shocked but be too polite to refuse his request to share her table. Then she'd find she didn't want to finish her drink in the shop after all, stammer out an awkward farewell, perhaps offer a tense little smile, and flee.

But it was either that, or return to the gym. And since he'd been spending sixteen hours a day there, working on the expansion that would double its size, and lived in the apartment over it, he really, _really_ didn't want to go back just then. Inhaling deeply, he made his way through the crowd, threading his way along the narrow space between the close-set tables.

"Excuse me," he said, trying to pitch his voice low, to garner as little attention as possible from the other customers.

"Yes?" she said, and tilted up a face that, had he been less of a stoic, would have made him gasp.

God, she was _lovely_ , all rosebud mouth and winged auburn brows over china-blue eyes. He felt almost battered by her beauty, like it was a weapon she'd used to strike him unconscious. It took Sandor a full five seconds to recover himself enough to speak.

"There are no other empty seats. Do you mind if I join you?"

"Of course not!" And then she aimed a smile at him that felt like a laser shot to the heart. He barely felt his legs as he lowered himself into the spindly, too-small chair opposite her.

"Thanks," he managed, and turned his gaze down to his meal, intending to eat his overpriced hipster sandwich as quickly as possible and leave her in peace.

"I was just thinking how good it would be to have company," she said, still beaming at him. "It's such a nice day."

Sandor stopped, sandwich halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. "You were?" he asked, stupidly. "It is?"

He'd thought the pouring rain, overcast sky, and near-freezing temperature the absolute worst kind of weather there was. He'd almost remained in the damned gym because he hadn't wanted to go out in that mess. Clearly, she defined 'nice day' very differently than he did.

"Well, maybe it's a little wet. And I guess it's kind of chilly. But there's something cozy about bundling up all warm, and having coffee in a bustling café like this while the rain beats on the windows, isn't there? And now I have someone to share it with."

"When you put it like that…" Sandor allowed, thinking maybe it might be cozy after all, and thinking maybe she could talk him into just about anything if she kept smiling at him like that.

"What's your name?" she asked. She took another bite of the lemon poppy seed muffin in front of her. "I'm Sansa."

He almost choked on the sandwich. " 'm Sandor," he mumbled around his mouthful.

"Ah, sorry," Sansa said with a laugh. "Didn't mean to make you talk with your mouth full."

"It's fine." He gulped his coffee, grimacing as it scalded all the way down.

 _Too hot._ The coffee was too hot, and he was feeling distinctly hot under the collar in Sansa's presence. He felt like a gaping, bumbling fool, all thumbs because of her proximity across the little table. He'd seen beautiful women before, even dated a few of the crazier ones who'd condescended to being with him, but… his reaction to her was unprecedented. It was as if someone had gone through a checklist of his ideal woman's characteristics and ticked every single box.

"Do you work around here?" she asked. Her muffin was gone, and she was dabbing up crumbs with her fingertip, then licking them off with a little pink tongue that had Sandor feeling like he'd been stabbed in the belly. _Oh, god._

"I own the gym across the street," he replied in a voice that sounded like gravel poured over asphalt. "I work as a personal trainer there, too."

"Aha!" Sansa gave a another laugh. "You must be quite fit, as well as big."

He had to smile at that, just a little. "It would look pretty bad if the owner were some wimpy schlub, yeah."

"It must be nice, being that strong." She sighed and lifted her arm. It was clear she was flexing her puny little bicep, though it was hidden under her bulky sweater, which was the color of rancid pumpkin. Sandor wondered how it made her look like she was lit from within. "I need to get a stronger grip. Sometimes my dog pulls away so hard I drop her harness."

Harness? That was an odd way to refer to a leash. Sandor let that thought drift away, because her cell phone rang. She excused herself with a smile that, just like the others, was adorable— god, he was feeling disgusted with himself for even _thinking_ that word— and fished it out of her purse.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Arya! Five minutes? Okay, see you then! Thanks!"

She returned her flip phone— a flip phone! Sandor hadn't seen an under-50-year-old person use one in years— and apologized to him for the interruption.

At this point, he was feeling a little dizzy. Beautiful _and_ sweet, with excellent manners? And, he realized in shock, she hadn't made a single reference to his scars, in word or gesture. She hadn't stared, or flicked her eyes back toward the hideous mess that was the left side of his face, or stammered. Not once.

 _Where had she been all his life?_

"Do you come here often?" he asked, then winced. Just the world's most clichéed pick-up line ever. _Smooth_. "Ah… I didn't mean it like that."

 _Yes, you did._ He wanted to pick her up, both literally and figuratively. And often. He had an idea that she would feel like heaven had been curled up into his arms.

She just laughed softly. "Yes, I have a weekly appointment in an office next door, so when I'm done with it, I wait here for my ride to come get me."

"Same day and time each week?" Sandor didn't even know what he was doing any more. He'd never in his life been this forward with a woman before.

A blush rose in her cheeks. His breath came a little faster at the sight of it. She looked down at her empty cup and smiled, a small, shy curve of lips that told him she was aware of his interest in her.

"Yes, same day and time each week."

"Would you have lunch with me here next week, then?" His tongue felt three sizes too large as it fumbled around the words. "I'd—"

Sandor was cut off by the arrival of a small, untidy hurricane.

"Sansa!" the hurricane exclaimed, spraying cold rain everywhere from her drenched, over-sized coat. "I'm double parked, we have to go! You know the groomer gets super pissed if we're late picking Lady up."

"Oh! Yes!" Sansa said, a little flustered. "Sandor, this is my sister Arya."

Arya shot a suspicious glance at him, which he tried to return with one of docile respectability. He doubted it would convince her. Men six and a half feet tall with a face like ten miles of bad road weren't too good at inspiring feelings of anything but fear and unease, generally.

Sansa reached for her coat, slung over the back of her chair. Sandor stood and reached for the garment, meaning to hold it for her, but Arya got there first, helping her sister into it and even adjusting the scarf so it lay snugly around Sansa's neck. Her gaze was like twin gunshots drilling through Sandor's sternum the entire time.

"Got your cane?" Arya asked. Her tone seemed like it was trying to communicate something to Sandor.

He stood beside the table, hovering over them, feeling intensely stupid and wondering if Sansa were injured, to need a cane, but he wasn't confused in the least why the girl would be so hostile toward him. Most people were.

"Yep!" Sansa dug around in her bag and pulled out a bundle of white sticks. She shook it out, and it became a red-tipped cane.

Sandor felt the blood leave his head.

 _She was blind._

It all made perfect sense, now— how she'd shown no surprise at his scars, how she'd been so at ease, how she'd seemed pleased instead of horrified with his clumsy flirting. He'd thought that maybe this glorious creature might find him appealing— somehow, magically— in spite of his ungainly huge body and repulsive face. But it had only been because she hadn't seen any of it in the first place.

He had been silent too long. He blinked, and realized that Sansa's head was drooping, like a sadly wilting flower, and her usually cheerful face was carefully blank. Arya was glaring at him like she'd like to _actually_ shoot him through the sternum.

"It was nice to meet you," Sansa whispered. She looked on the verge of tears. Sandor felt like the worst human who'd ever lived.

With one last, searing glare promising dismemberment and agony, Arya led her sister away.

Stricken, Sandor watched as the girls left, Arya guiding Sansa into a beat-up catastrophe of a car haphazardly parked in the middle of the street and causing a huge traffic jam. It was only after they'd driven away that he sat back down to finish his meal. He took another few bites, but they all tasted like cardboard, now, and the coffee was bitter in his mouth. He threw it all away and went back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

_Brewed Awakening Caf_ _é, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Third week of November_

After her singing lesson was over, Sansa took her time putting on her coat and taking up Lady's harness, then dragged her feet as she made her way to the elevator to delay her arrival at the coffee shop as long as possible. Her usual eagerness for lunch— she never ate before her lessons in order to keep her throat and vocal chords clear— had been effectively killed by her very strong desire to avoid Sandor for the rest of her life.

She'd gone 24 years without making his acquaintance, prior to last week, so she felt there were pretty good odds of making it at least another 24 without managing it a second time. She knew she had nothing to feel bad about, being blind. It wasn't her fault, and it wasn't a shameful condition, but she still felt unreasonably hurt by his shocked silence upon learning she couldn't see.

She hadn't been that attracted to a man in years, and never so immediately. But his voice was like dragging velvet over her skin, or letting dark chocolate melt on her tongue. She could tell he was tall, by how high up his voice was, and as a tall woman it was nice to not match or tower over a man. Knowing he was quite fit, as the owner and trainer of a gym, didn't hurt, either.

It had been a long while since a man had shown interest in her as a woman instead of a patient or student or colleague. And he'd seemed so cute and awkward, when he'd stumbled over his responses to her. It made her wonder if he, too, was out of practice in the ways of romance. Gods knew she certainly was. Despite it, though, there had been a sweet, immediate tension stretching between them in just those few minutes they'd had before Arya had arrived and dropped the bomb.

It was Robb's turn, today, to pick Sansa up from her singing lesson, and she'd asked him to come right afterward instead of waiting the usual half-hour she took to have lunch. However, he'd not been able to rearrange his schedule, so she was stuck— either gird her loins and go to the café as usual, or stand on the sidewalk like a dope until Robb arrived.

Her stomach burbled in hunger. Her mouth was parched from all the singing. She sighed and turned right, heading for the coffee shop, thanking Lady when the dog guided her around a slick patch on the sidewalk.

The bell over the door dinged as she pushed it open.

"Hey, Sansa! The usual?"

"Hey, Hot Pie!" she replied with a warm smile, determined not to let her low mood affect her outward demeanor. "Yes, please!"

"There's a free table right over here—" Hot Pie began, his voice growing louder so she knew he had left the counter to approach her. His hand touched her elbow in his usual discreet way of helping her to an empty seat. He was an old friend of Arya's and never failed to be an absolute sweetheart to Sansa.

"Hi, Sansa," said a dark-chocolate voice right in front of her. "It's… it's Sandor."

Her eyes widened in dismay. _Drat_.

"Sandor," she breathed, feeling a little panicky and wishing she could escape. "…hi," she managed eventually.

"Will you sit with me?"

All that money spent on therapy to cope with her condition, and she was still pathologically adverse to confrontation. Her impulse to flee communicated itself to Lady, who shifted her stance, ready to direct her partner wherever she wanted to go.

Sandor probably only wanted to ease his conscience by apologizing to her for his behavior upon realizing her blindness. It was stupid to give him a second chance to be unwittingly hurtful to her. It was on the tip of Sansa's tongue to refuse him, to tell him she was going right home but had only stopped in to say hello to Hot Pie. Then she could go back to the building where she had her singing lessons, sit in the lobby, and starve to death while waiting for Robb to arrive.

But there was some mysterious texture to Sandor's delicious voice, something that sounded like genuine regret. Sansa recalled the immediate curl of attraction she'd felt in her stomach at the sound of it last week. And it wasn't like he could do anything besides hurt her feelings a little more, right?

Beside her, Hot Pie was as silent and still as the Venus di Milo. She imagined he'd hardly make it behind the counter before he was texting Arya aaaaalllllllll about it.

 _Oh, to hell with it._ For once, Sansa was going to take a chance.

"Okay," she said at last. She reached out a hand. "Lead me there?"

"Yes," he replied, sounding immeasurably relieved.

He took her hand in his huge, warm one and placed it in the crook of his elbow, then started toward a table. Sansa thought it might be the same one at which they'd sat the previous week. Under her palm, his bicep was a boulder of flexing muscle as he steered her around various minor hazards. She bit back a wistful sigh.

"I'll go order my lunch, then be right back," he mumbled, then left her there at the table.

She settled in with Lady, holding her tote bag in her lap. She decided against taking off her coat, in case things got awkward and she had to make a fast getaway.

Sandor returned after only a minute, and she realized she hadn't paid for her order. "I have to go to the register."

"Ah, no need, I got it," he replied quickly. "I asked you, last week, after all…" He sounded desperately uncomfortable.

"Thank you," she said in a tiny voice, head downcast and shoulders stiff.

Silence fell.

After a few fraught moments, Sandor said, "So who's this fine beast?" Sansa winced at the blatantly false joviality of his tone.

"This is Lady," she replied. The dog glanced up at the sound of her name, and Sansa lowered her hand to fondle Lady's fuzzy ears. "She's the best guide dog ever."

They dropped into another tense little silence.

"Sansa, I wanted to apologize. For last week," he said in a rush. "I think you misunderstood something."

"I don't think I did. You're not the first man to be disappointed in me, when he learns I'm blind." Her tone was grim, and she wished belatedly she'd been able to keep it more neutral instead of giving away so much.

"No," he said, quite firmly. "No, I wasn't disappointed in you. I don't care that you're blind. In fact, I'm… I'm _glad_ for it."

 _Huh?_ That was new.

"I don't mean that I'm glad you're blind." He blew out an impatient, resigned breath. "Sansa, the truth is that I'm a very ugly man. I have scars over half my face, and elsewhere. Bad ones. And most women won't have anything to do with me because of them."

 _Ah._ She believed him; the rough emotion in that raw-silk voice was genuine. He really hadn't been repelled by her, just dumbstruck to think that the only reason a woman wasn't repelled by his appearance because she couldn't see him. Her heart ached at how much that must have hurt.

Sansa clenched her fists in her lap, angry that someone would discard a person just because of an unsightly characteristic, but she knew it happened every day. Heck, before she had lost her sight when she was a teenager, she'd been one of those people, ignoring nice-but-homely boys in favor of panting after hot guys who lacked any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Then she'd gone blind, and realized that a person's face meant _nothing_. Those she'd thought were her friends— a clique of the high school's most attractive and popular kids, and even Joffrey, her gorgeous, rich boyfriend— had deserted her as soon as she'd begun having serious problems with her vision.

"I'm sorry you were treated that way," she replied gravely. "It makes no sense. Looks aren't kind, or patient, or generous, or compassionate, or brave, or reliable. Looks didn't _do_ anything. If anything, they're just a disguise for real ugliness."

"Yes," he rasped, sounding a little breathless. "They often are."

Sansa wished like anything that she could see him right now, not because she wanted to admire his looks (or lack thereof) but to have some clue as to what he was thinking. His terse way of speaking didn't give her much to go on.

"Except for you," he muttered after a few seconds. "You're the same outside as inside, I think."

Sansa felt a tide of heat sweep over her cheeks. She knew she was considered pretty, for all the good that did her.

"My brothers and sister would be the first to tell you how many flaws I have," she murmured, her hands going to the buttons of her coat. After that compliment, she was definitely staying.

Sandor took a long time to reply, and Sansa felt a bit self-conscious, knowing he was watching her, and hoping she hadn't said something wrong.

"I think siblings are our worst critics," he said at last, before clamming up again.

"Ah, you have some, too?" she prompted gently. She slipped from her her coat and draped it over the back of her seat.

"One brother, one sister. Sister's nice. Brother's the world's biggest asshole."

"Brothers can be a trial." Hers certainly were. She smiled a little. "I have three. Four if you count our foster brother, five if you count a cousin who lived with us, growing up."

Hot Pie arrived with their meal, announcing, "Here it is!" so Sansa wouldn't be surprised by him. _He was so considerate,_ she thought warmly, and smiled up at him in thanks. Her smile started to fade when he kept putting more and more food on the table, until her expression shifted to one of amazement.

"Are you on some high-calorie diet for, uh, muscle-building or something?" she asked Sandor, patting around on the table until she found two thick sandwiches, three of the over-sized muffins, and two enormous beverage containers— her latte was twice as big as what she had ordered. "Or are you larger than I think? Because this is a _lot_ of food."

There was a short, embarrassed silence, during which Hot Pie took himself back to the kitchen.

"Well," he began hesitantly, sounding as if he expected her to laugh at him, "I thought I'd get one of those lemon muffins also, since you seem to like them so well. And then I thought you might be hungrier than just a muffin, so I got you a sandwich, too, and then another muffin, and then if you're eating all that, you might be thirsty, so…"

 _Oh, god_. He was completely adorable. The idea that this huge man could be so anxious to make sure she had enough, generous enough to pay the shop's exorbitant prices without a qualm, and so abashed about it all, made her feel a clenching in her chest that had her a little breathless. Sandor was a gem, and she wasn't letting him get away if she had anything to say about it. If he was going to be shy, she'd just have to help him out a bit.

"You are the cutest person I've ever met," she informed him seriously, "and you'd better ask me on a real date sometime soon, or you'll break my heart."

"I wouldn't want to do that," he said after a long moment, sounding stunned, and as serious as a heart attack, and relieved. All at once. Sansa gave a little internal squee. "Where should we go?"

"Hm." She paused, working her way through half a sandwich before moving on to a muffin. "Anywhere, really. I'm not picky," she said eventually. And she meant it; she was more than tired of how carefully her parents and brothers treated her, as if she were a toddler needing to be babysat instead of an adult.

Arya, however, often forgot Sansa was blind, or maybe didn't care, or perhaps just took it as a challenge. Her 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead' approach had resulted in a few minor kerfuffles when Sansa just wasn't able to keep up with her sister's derring-do. That Rammstein concert had gone down in Stark family history as one of Arya's worse ideas, which was saying something.

"I just like getting out. I don't get to do that too often. Or I do, but only with my family, and they either try to wrap me in cotton wool or… are Arya."

"She's a firecracker," Sandor commented mildly, seeming to feel that diplomacy was the better part of valor.

"That she is," she agreed, then offered him the other half of her sandwich, which she couldn't finish. He took it gladly, then offered her the other two muffins and a refill on her latte, which wasn't even half-empty yet.

"One muffin will do," she said with a laugh, "and if I have more than the one latte, I'll be up all night, but thank you."

They finished eating, with Sandor finally agreeing to take the last muffin home after Sansa insisted she couldn't eat another bite.

Then her phone rang. She rifled through her tote bag for it, flipping it open to hear her brother say, "Hey, it's me."

"Hi, Robb!" she said cheerfully, though in truth she was disappointed to have lunch end so soon.

"Be there in five, Sans."

"Ok, I'll be ready!" She hung up and began to shrug back into her coat, but slowly, reluctant to end their time together. "That's my brother. He'll be here soon."

"…walk you out?"

She nodded, so he did, leading her carefully between the tables, and Sansa bade Hot Pie farewell. Once outside in the brisk air— today it wasn't raining, at least, just cold enough to make her nose freeze together— she stood quietly, trying to think of something to talk about before Robb's arrival.

"I'm glad you let me explain about…" Sandor trailed off. "…last week."

"So am I!" She smiled again, feeling very relieved indeed. It was quite a turnaround from how down she'd felt upon arriving at the café just— she felt the face of her watch— 23 minutes earlier.

The _vroom_ of a sports car suffering unnecessarily vigorous acceleration sounded from down the street.

"Ah, Robb's almost here," she murmured.

A squeal of tires, followed by the faint scent of burnt rubber, heralded Robb's arrival.

"Hey, Sans, you ready?" asked Robb. There was a moment of silence, during which she knew he was inspecting Sandor. "Who's your friend?"

A click told her that Sandor had opened the door for her and Lady. She released the dog's harness, murmuring "In," so Lady could enter the car.

"This is Sandor," she told him. "Sandor, my brother, Robb."

More silence; she guessed they were staring each other down in that way men had. _Testosterone was a terrible poison_ , she thought sadly.

Sansa stepped to the car, hands out to feel for it, and bent to get in. She felt something lightly cup her head and realized that Sandor had reached to place his hand between her and the door frame, to keep her from bonking herself. Her chest did that peculiar little clench again.

He shut the doors. She hastened to open the window, reluctant for their time together to end just yet, and 'looked' up at where she imagined his face would be.

"Will I see you here next week?" she asked, very hopeful.

"Yes. Same time?"

"Yes, twelve-thirty." She smiled at him in pleasure. "Have a good week!"

"You too."

Robb, back in the car, slammed his own door. "See ya," he said across the car to Sandor, his tone just this side of rude, then pushed his button to roll Sansa's window back up before pulling away.

They had barely started moving before Robb said, "Sansa, what the hell."

She sighed. "What, Robb?"

"Arya texted me that Hot Pie texted _her_ that the scarred guy who'd been rude to you last week was there again. So I rearranged things and came early, just to find you arm-in-arm with him, looking like you were ten minutes from eloping."

"He wasn't rude last week," Sansa defended him. She chose to ignore the 'eloping' comment though it did send a little thrill through her at the idea she'd managed to have a romantic lunch with someone she actually found attractive. "He was just very surprised. He apologized. I accepted. It's all good."

"As long as he doesn't try anything," Robb muttered darkly. Sansa remembered well his moods and expressions from before her vision loss, and knew he was scowling fiercely. "If he thinks you'll be an easy mark because of your sight, we'll beat the shit out of him."

"Maybe I _want_ him to try something," she shot back, feeling tired of this old issue. "Is it really so impossible to believe that a man might actually want to spend time with me, instead of trying to take advantage of my disability to victimize me?"

There was a short, shocked silence. "Sansa, that's—"

"Because that's what I hear, every time you or Mom or Dad or Arya say something like that," she continued hotly. "I hear you saying that the only reason someone would bother with me was because I'm too helpless or easy to know better."

They said nothing the rest of the journey home to North Concord. Robb pulled into the driveway and turned the car off, then just sat there a moment.

"I'm sorry if that's what you thought we were saying," he said at last. "Of course we know you have qualities that would make a man want to date you. We just… we get scared, Sans. There are a lot of shitty people out there, and like it or not, you are vulnerable. We just don't want anything to happen to you."

She felt like a balloon, slowly deflating, as the anger left her. "I know you don't, Robb. But you have to let me take some chances, at some point. I can't spend the rest of my life being… being swaddled by everyone. I want a life of my own. A husband and family, one day. Other blind people have independent lives like actual adults. Why can't I, too?"

There was a tap on Sansa's window; she turned her head to it, automatically, but of course couldn't tell who it was. She fumbled for the button to roll down the glass.

"Something wrong?" their mother asked, opening the back door so Lady could get out. "Why aren't you coming inside?"

"Nothing's wrong," Sansa told her. "Just working through a difference in philosophies. But Robb understands my thoughts, now, and is going to keep his giant piehole shut about it in the future."

"Is that right," Catelyn commented, her voice amused.

Sansa could hear Robb grumbling as she pushed open her door and stood. "Fine, whatever, don't come crying to me, et cetera."

"I definitely won't come crying to you," she replied, and flounced away as best a blind girl with a guide dog could.


	3. Chapter 3

_Brewed Awakening Caf_ _é, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Last week of November_

Sandor was almost late getting across the street to the coffee shop next time, which meant that instead of being a full hour early, he was only a half-hour early. He told Hot Pie their order, and to not make it until Sansa had arrived. This time, he only ordered as much as they'd actually eat.

He'd kept last week's extra muffin as long as possible, as a souvenir of sorts, but it had started to get moldy. He picked off the furry green spot and ate the rest, thinking of her the entire time with what was apparently 'the single most revolting love-sick smile that has ever appeared on anyone's face in the history of life as we know it', according to his business partner, Bronn.

Bronn had ended up getting pushed into the pool, for that.

Sandor had taken extra care with himself this time— without being able to see him, how could he make himself appealing to her? Without sight, the senses remaining to her were hearing, smell, feel, and taste.

His voice he could do nothing about, but he refrained from working out that morning, so he wouldn't be sweaty. He even unearthed some beard oil from where it had languished, unused, in the very back of a drawer. His sister, Annalise, had given it to him for Sevenmas one year, and it was scented of cedar and pine, which he sincerely hoped Sansa would like, because now he smelled like a damned forest.

Then he'd worn a soft micro-fleece hoodie, and knowing she wouldn't be put off by seeing his scars, he'd put his long hair back in a bun. He preferred it off his face, and was looking forward to being able to spend an entire day that way instead of the usual up-and-down he went through as he progressed from private to public space and back again.

Lastly, he'd dropped a pack of mints into his pocket. He had no hopes about actually getting to kiss her, but it couldn't hurt to be safe, right?

Right?

…god, he really _was_ revoltingly love-sick.

At 12:25, he went outside to loiter on the sidewalk until he saw her, telling himself that it was just because it was snowing and he didn't want her to slip, and not that he was pathetically keen to see her again. Very soon, she left the building next door, Lady at her side.

"We're going to the café, Lady," he heard her say, faint in the distance, "to see Sandor!"

The eagerness in her voice— to see _him_ — made Sandor feel like she'd just taken his heart in one of her hands and squeezed.

When she reached the door, he greeted her. "Hey, Sansa."

"Ah, Sandor!" she smiled up at him. "Did you just get here, too?"

"Not long ago," he replied vaguely. 'Long' was relative, wasn't it? "Want to take my arm?"

She nodded, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow. As he led them to a table, he could feel her fingertips exploring the velvety nap of his hoodie.

"I ordered the same for us as last time," he told her. "I hope that's alright."

"That's perfect, thanks!" She took off her peacoat and toque. This time she wore a sweater the color of Dijon mustard. It would have made anyone else look like they were in the end stage of acute liver failure; it turned her skin to pearl, her hair to garnet, and her eyes to aquamarine.

Hot Pie arrived with a laden tray, which kept Sandor from staring at her like a lunatic. After the items were distributed, and Sansa had thanked him for buying it with a pretty smile, they began to eat.

"How was your week?" she asked between bites.

"Good," he replied. "Got a permit to expand into the commercial space next door. Going to build more classroom spaces, and offer yoga and ballet classes in addition to kickboxing and spin. Maybe put up a rock-climbing wall."

Her eyes rounded in surprise. "Wow, that's amazing! You're pretty successful, then!"

"Hope so. Got good trainers and teachers. Make sure the equipment is modern and maintained and the locker rooms are clean and safe."

"I really should start going there," she said. Some mayonnaise lingered at the corner of her mouth. She patted around the table, searching for something, so Sandor slid the stack of napkins in her direction until she found it. She took one and dabbed at her lips. "Lady pulled out of my hand again a few days ago."

"Come any time," Sandor said, and meant it more than anything he'd ever said.

"I will!" exclaimed Sansa, looking excited. "I have a pretty busy few weeks coming up for work, but I'm sure I can figure something out."

That garnered his attention. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a singer with the choir for the state symphony orchestra." She dropped a hand to Lady's head and stroked it. "I have practice on Wednesdays, my singing lesson on Thursdays, then performances Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings."

"Makes perfect sense," said Sandor haltingly, "since you sound like a little bird when you talk." God, he was wretched at this flirting thing.

Sansa made a face. "What's that supposed to mean? That I'm shrill and high-pitched? Gee, thanks."

"No, no, no." Sandor laughed. "Just that your voice is very… musical. Sweet. Compelling, I guess. You know." He had to stop talking. Now.

"Your voice is pretty compelling, too," she murmured, with a flutter of eyelashes. "Do you sing?"

" _God_ , no." He was very emphatic about that. "I sound like shit."

"Ah, I bet you'd be great, with a little practice," she coaxed. "No one sings well at first. You'd definitely be a bass, with that beautiful deep voice of yours. Or even a _basso profundo_. As a soprano, we're positioned in front of the bass singers. Hearing them sing right behind me is always thrilling." She gave a little involuntary-looking shiver, as if physically effected by the mere memory.

"That right?" Sandor pitched his voice as low as he could and smiled when she shivered again.

"Yes," she said faintly, taking a hurried sip of her latte. "That's right."

He'd never thought to see a woman react like that to him in any way, let alone his voice. "Maybe I'll take singing lessons, then," he rumbled.

"Yes. You should do that," Sansa breathed. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and her lips were parted. Impossibly, two little points stiffened and poked out the front of her sweater. Sandor had a nigh-unbearable impulse to fling her over his shoulder, carry her off to his apartment over the gym, and ravish her for the next year like a damned caveman.

"Date," he said hoarsely. "You wanted me to take you on a date."

"Yes." Her reply was immediate. "Where should we go?"

He cleared his throat and tried to keep his mind focused on a date instead of how her pink lips looked so soft, and her mouth probably tasted like coffee, and that he _loved_ coffee, and he had to _focus_.

"We could go to a wine and cheese tasting out at a vineyard in the country…"

Sansa lit up with delight. "That's a wonderful idea!

"…or there's this place where you can design your own perfume…"

"That's great, too!" she gasped. "I've always wanted to do that!"

"…or there's this cat café where you can play with cats from the shelter— socializes them so they have a better chance of being adopted."

There, that gave her the option of something to taste, something to smell, and something to touch.

"Had thought of a concert, but if that's your day job, you probably don't want to listen to more of it," he finished.

She just 'stared' at him in astonishment. "No, that would be wonderful, too. I never get tired of listening to music." Her voice was very soft, and she was looking… well, a little dazed, really. "I don't know which one to choose, they all sound terrific."

"No rush to decide, take your time. Maybe tell me next week."

Sansa's phone rang just as she nodded at him, her face flushed with happiness. Sandor felt fiercely proud of himself for putting the faint color there.

"That was my father," she told him when the call was over, and started to gather herself up. "He's just down the street."

He stood before she did, taking and holding out her coat for her.

"I can do it," she murmured, even as she threaded her arms into the sleeves.

"I know you can," replied Sandor carefully. "Just wanted to do it for you. Like opening a door for you, or pulling out a chair. Want to do those for you, too."

Sansa tilted her face up toward him, looking like she was thinking very hard. Then she reached up a hand. "Where are you, up there?" she asked with a laugh. "Where's your face?"

"Um." He took her hand and placed it on his good cheek.

"Oh, a beard!" She pet it lightly, then drew him down toward her. He held his breath while she placed a soft kiss on his cheek, just under his eye.

"What what that for?" The top of Sandor's head felt like it was coming off. That close, he could tell she smelled like sugary grapefruit, and his mouth watered despite having just eaten.

"To thank you. For lunch, for being good company, for being sweet and considerate. You're wonderful."

He coughed and didn't reply. He had no words, just then.

"Don't be embarrassed," she teased. "Though that's adorable, too."

"Stop," he pleaded in his quietest voice. He had liked that she was perceptive, but now he was thinking that maybe she was a bit _too_ perceptive. A car honked outside. "Think your father's here."

Sansa, still smiling and looking mischievous, tossed her scarf around her neck, tugged on her toque, and took his arm to be led out, Lady at her side. He thought she looked impossibly pretty, all bundled up like that.

An older man, craggy of face and sandy of hair, got out of the car and began to round the trunk, but Sandor was already at the car doors, opening them for Sansa and the dog.

"Hi, Daddy!" she said with a wide smile. "I wasn't expecting you today! Isn't it Jon's turn?"

"Arya and Robb told me you've made a new friend. I volunteered to pick you up so I could meet him." He stepped onto the sidewalk, his hand outstretched, and straightened his shoulders in an unconscious move to make himself as big and daunting as possible. He still only came to Sandor's chin. "Ned Stark."

"Sandor Clegane." He was careful not to wring Ned's hand too hard— he didn't want to hurt the man, but he was known to have a powerful grip.

Even half-strength was apparently too much; Ned's face slackened in surprise and he glanced down at their hands. "You seem a bit old to be spending time with a girl Sansa's age."

"Daddy!" Sansa exclaimed in mortification.

"Why, is she under eighteen?" Sandor just quirked his lips in as much of a smile as he ever gave before turning to Sansa. "Girl, are you trying to get me arrested?"

She gave what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "No, I'm twenty-four. Perfectly legal in every way."

"That's a relief. For a second, I thought you were jailbait." He felt her squeeze his arm, just a little.

"Heeeyyyyyyy, Daddy, how old are _you_?" Her voice was all things innocent, but Sandor could hear the undercurrent of humor.

Silence. Then, "You know darned well I'm fifty-seven."

"Ah." Her face was like an alabaster sculpture, all smooth planes and guileless expression. "Annnnnnd… how old is Mom?"

A sigh. "She's forty-six."

"Ah. So you're eleven years older than she is." Sansa paused for effect. "Sandor, how old are _you_?"

Now _he_ felt like giggling. She was positively demonic, under that angelic exterior. "I'm thirty-three."

"Just _nine_ years' difference. Hm."

Ned muttered something under his breath and turned his face away, looking extremely grumpy. Satisfied that she'd made her point, Sansa graciously allowed Sandor to help her into the car. Glancing up, he saw her father watching him, and knew he'd seen Sandor put his hand between the door frame and Sansa's head as before.

"Next week?" he asked, before he shut the door.

"You know it," replied Sansa.

"You'll think about where to go?"

"On our _date_?" She said it too loudly, and he knew she was needling her father again, because the other man grumbled and she giggled once more. "Yes, I have a feeling I'll have to talk about it allllll week long in order to make the best choice."

Now Ned was shooting actively hostile glances at his daughter and Sandor, who thought the time was ripe to favor the man with his widest, most hideous grin.

Ned flinched.

"Have a good week," Sandor told her, aiming a _genuine_ smile at her, though she couldn't see it, and shut the door.


	4. Chapter 4

_Brewed Awakening Caf_ _é, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _First week of December_

Sandor surprised Sansa by meeting her and Lady at the door of the building next door as she came out. She then surprised him in turn by kissing his cheek in greeting. The imprint of her soft lips felt burned into his skin as his scars never had. He stood there, staring dumbly at her and entirely blocking the door for so long that he had to move aside so people could enter the building.

When he shook himself free of the shock, he guided her in to the café and to their usual table. Off came her coat to reveal the ugliest sweater Sandor had ever seen: a taupe monstrosity with red slashes across it as if she'd just escaped a vicious lion-mauling, and black blobs scattered all over like buboes on a plague victim. Somehow, against all reason and laws of physics, it made her hair and face even more radiant. He wondered what sorcery she accessed to make it happen, and even thought about asking her, but then Hot Pie arrived with their lunch and they dug in.

"So how are things going with the expansion?" she asked pertly. "Are you going to do the rock climbing wall or not?"

"Can't decide," Sandor answered after swallowing his mouthful. "We'd have to open up the first floor into the second, losing the apartment that's there, and the rental income from it. Have to decide whether I'd bring in enough membership fees from the climbing wall to offset the loss of the rent. How about you? Singing going okay?"

"Yes!" Sansa's face lit up. "We'll be doing Vivaldi's 'Gloria' for the Christmas season and I'm doing a duet!"

"Oh, nice." Sandor had never even heard of Vivaldi before, let alone that particular work, and he surreptitiously pulled out his phone, searched for and found the piece in his music player, then bought and downloaded it. "I want to hear you sing, some time."

"Any time you want," Sansa replied promptly. "It's the least I can do, since you've been so generous in buying my lunch so many times. Speaking of which: next time, lunch is on me!"

"No," Sandor protested. "I—"

"I'm just as capable of paying as you are," Sansa informed him, lifting her chin, looking stubborn.

"I don't want do it because I think you can't afford it," he replied, a little taken aback, but also charmed to find she had a feisty side. "I want to do it because—"

He broke off, heaved in a deep breath. This much soul-baring was intensely uncomfortable for him. "I feel as if having your company is like a… a present or something, so the least I can do is pay for lunch, if you're being generous enough to spend your time on me."

She just 'looked' at him for a long moment, lips parted in surprise, before smiling. There was something very tender in that smile, something Sandor felt undeserving of, but greedy for. Then she reached out to him, and he took it, hoping that's what she wanted him to do. Her little hand lay in his big rough paw like a pearl in an oyster shell, and his fingers clasped around hers in the reflexive curl of a newborn.

"So, about that date we're going to go on." She began rummaging with her free hand in her tote bag.

"Yes, about that date." Sandor was intensely self-conscious to be holding her hand in public. Not self-conscious enough to stop doing it, but he felt as if everyone in the shop were staring at them, wondering what this exquisite little bird of a woman was doing with a hulking brute like him. She belonged with someone like the model-handsome kid at the next table, with his curling dark hair and soulful eyes. The kid had been sneaking incredulous glances at them the whole time, as if unbelieving that such an incongruous pair could exist.

 _I can_ _'t believe it either,_ Sandor thought with a mental shake of his head.

"I did some research into nearby vineyards that do wine-tasting tours, like you mentioned last week. I printed this out so I could show you."

"Oh?" A fine warmth started in his chest, pleased that she'd liked his idea that much. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the impossibly soft skin of her hand. "What did you find?"

She handed him the print-out she'd unearthed. "This place gives you lunch, half-way through, so you don't get too hammered—" she paused to grin at him— "and after the second part, there's a bonfire with mulled cider and s'mores! Doesn't that sound fun?"

 _Bonfire._

The word ricocheted through his head, and suddenly flames were all he could see. The coffee aroma pervading the shop faded, replaced by the smell of his own cooking flesh. And instead of the shop's chatter, he could hear his brother's voice, taunting him as he held Sandor's face into the fire.

"Sandor?"

Dimly, he heard Sansa calling to him.

"Sandor? Is something wrong?"

He let out an explosive breath, not realizing he'd been holding it in for a while, then pulled away from her to plant his elbows on the table and bury his face in his hands.

"That's not a good idea," he mumbled. "The… the last part."

"The bonfire?" She sounded baffled.

"Yeah. Everything before that would be fine, though."

"Okay." Her voice was soft and hesitant. "I'm sorry, I thought it would be-"

He wanted to kick himself for not being able to hide his reaction better. Now she'd realize how damaged he really was, both outside and in.

"Don't be sorry. You did nothing wrong," he interrupted, but gently. "My scars— I got them in a fire."

Sansa was quiet for a long moment. "I didn't realize they were… like that. I thought you meant they were… lacerations. Cuts. Not what you get from a burn."

"Yeah. They're not the dashing, piratical kind, unfortunately." _When vulnerable, deflect with mockery._ That was his old standby.

"Can I… can I touch your face?" Her sightless eyes were wide and pleading. "It's the only way I get to know what anyone looks like. And I won't feel like I really know you unless I know your scars, since they've made such an impact on you."

His immediately instinct was to recoil, to shout _no_ and lash out, or just flee. But this was Sansa, who didn't have a mean bone in her body. He knew she didn't want to do it out of mere curiosity, to explore the pits and ridges like he was an exhibit in a side show, as others had.

"Somewhere else, yeah," he rasped. "Not here."

Sansa replaced the print-out in her bag and began shrugging back into her coat. "How about now? Would that be okay?"

"Uh." Sandor felt like a video playing at three-quarter speed. "Isn't one of your family coming to pick you up soon?"

She blushed. It should have clashed horrifically with that hideous sweater, but she just looked like her usual glowing porcelain self.

"I… kind of told them I'd find my own ride home. I thought maybe we could… keep talking for a while. You don't have to drive me, if you don't want to," she rushed to add. "I can take an Uber."

"No, I'll bring you home. Of course I will." Relief to have more time with her warred with reluctance to have her feel the ruin of Sandor's face and realize how grotesque he was. He stood, feeling resigned, like a man on his way to the gallows without hope of the governor's reprieve, and let Sansa take his arm.

Outside on the sidewalk, he asked, "Where would you like to go?"

"Somewhere you'll be comfortable," was her reply. "Your office?"

With all his employees and, god forbid, Bronn around to ogle and gossip? He'd die, first. "I live over the gym."

"Okay, there." She sounded very sure; no way to wiggle out of it. _Dammit_.

Sandor texted Bronn to say he wouldn't be back to the gym that day, then escorted Sansa and Lady across the street, unlocking and entering a door right beside the gym's. As he led the way up the stairs, he had a sudden, but important, question to ask her. "Ah, how is Lady with other dogs?"

"She's great with them. We have six, total. Do you have a dog?"

"Um. Three, actually." Sandor opened the apartment door, and used his body to run interference between his guests and his 'roommates', all of whom were delighted to welcome the newcomers. "I foster rescues from the local shelter."

"Three? Introduce us to them!" Sansa demanded, hands out to pet the heads busily moving around her legs. "Lady, look, new friends!"

Lady looked suitably impressed. Possibly a little tense.

"The waist-high one is Stranger, a Cane Corso," said Sandor. "His hobbies include drooling and seeing how much he can crap in one day. He's trying to break the world record, and I think he's got a real shot at it."

Sansa burst out laughing, and gave Stranger a good pet, her fingers moving over his ears and down his neck. He gave the pony-sized beast an affectionate pat down his back before turning to the next two.

"The knee-high one is a whippet. Ulysses. He gets anxious if he's left alone." Ulysses got a scritch on his narrow head. "Well, _more_ anxious. He's kind of high-strung. Vet's got him on doggie downers. Seems to be helping."

He bent and swept the smallest one into his arms so Sansa could pet her more easily. "This little mop is Tupelo Honey, a Shih Tzu. She likes to lick ankles. You've been warned."

Sansa laughed again, taking the small dog into her arms and cuddling her face into the dog's long fur. She 'looked' up at him, a soft smile on her face.

"What?" he mumbled, feeling bashful as he herded the other three inside.

"Nothing, nothing," she replied, and he could see she wasn't going to share with him whatever had made her smile at him like that.

He topped up the water bowls, cleaned up a little accident Ulysses had caused (they were still working on indoor manners) and returned to the living room to find that Sansa had instructed Lady to sit in the corner. The guide dog was surrounded by Sandor's fosters, all of whom were investigating her thoroughly. She bore it with dignified fortitude.

Now that the preliminaries were handled, there was nothing left to delay the inevitable. Sandor had grave misgivings about having Sansa touch his face. He hadn't let anyone near his scars since they had finally healed. Any time someone had made accidental contact, both parties had jerked away, horrified, if for different reasons. He hoped, quite desperately, that she wouldn't be too repelled by the feel of them.

"Can we— let's talk, first." He had to ease into it. He knew, intellectually, that she wouldn't hurt him but emotionally? He still needed some convincing.

"Sure," she agreed easily, and held out her hand for him to lead her to wherever he wanted her to be.

They started out sitting beside each other on the sofa. He explained how his restlessness with spending his entire life in the gym or the apartment just above had driven him to eat lunch at the café, and then ask to join her.

"I have a singing lesson every week in the building next door to the coffee shop," Sansa said. "I go to eat something right away afterward because I always skip breakfast beforehand. Many foods can compromise the vocal chords."

After two hours, Sansa was tucked into Sandor's arms with her legs slung over his. Sandor described his time in the military, how he'd initially been so proud to qualify for the Special Forces and had enjoyed excelling at the brutal physical training they'd endured.

"But when I had the opportunity to leave, I took it," he explained. "Bronn was getting out around the same time. When he offered me a partnership in opening a gym here in his hometown, I figured, why the hell not? I didn't have anything to go back to in California, once my sister moved to Kansas."

Sansa revealed that the only reason her parents had relented to her pleas to major in vocal performance in college was because they felt, being blind, she didn't need an 'actual' education for a 'real' job, expecting her to live with them, and then one of her siblings, for the rest of her life.

It was a few hours after that, when the room had gone pitch-black, that Sandor realized they'd been sitting there talking for a long time, and he was hungry. Sansa's stomach growled when he mentioned dinner, so they ordered Thai and slurped noodles and kept talking.

When they were done, Sandor lay back against the cushions while Sansa basically lay sprawled half on top of him with Tupelo Honey on his chest and Ulysses draped over their legs. Stranger had been relegated to the floor with Lady, who kept giving the gigantic dog coy looks. Sansa called the tangle of people and dogs 'snuggling'. Sandor said it was 'fucking awesome' and that he wanted to do it for the next week.

After a couple more hours had passed and he felt like he could tell her about his darkest moment, Sandor told her how he'd been burned. After he'd soothed her tears, he'd mentioned how Gregor's luck had run out when he'd finally assaulted the wrong woman, who'd fought back and somehow, miraculously, managed to kill his mountainous brother.

Then Sansa explained that her eyes were actually perfect: her blindness was caused by a benign but trickily-located tumor pressing against her optic chiasm— where the optic nerves cross, deep within the brain. There were doctors in Germany who were working on a laser surgery to remove the tumor, but weren't quite there yet. She kept updated on their progress in hopes that one day she might be able to regain her sight.

Thus the evening passed, their dynamic shifting smoothly from tentative friendship to a deeper connection of relaxed touching and easy revelations, but it was not to last.

At the stroke of seven o'clock, Sansa's phone started blowing up. First it was texts, which her phone read to her in a robotic voice devoid of the increasing panic clearly felt by the texters: both parents, her sister, and half a battalion of brothers. Then it was calls, which she blithely let go to voice mail. Finally, fed up, she dictated a group text to the whole gang of them.

"I'm still with Sandor. He hasn't killed me yet, but the night is still young. If he doesn't end up baking Lady and me into a casserole, I'll be home at nine, at which time we're all going to have a discussion about boundaries and how you need to acquire some. Now leave me alone. I'm on a hot date and you're ruining it for me."

"This is a hot date?" he said when she'd snapped the phone shut and handed it to Lady, who took it between careful teeth to deposit it in Sansa's handbag.

"This is the most action I've gotten in over four years, so, yes," Sansa informed him, "so that's officially a hot date."

She wasn't pressuring him to get to the whole point of why they'd gone to his apartment in the first place: so she could explore his face with her hands. Her patience and tact had gone far in making him feel comfortable enough to go through with it.

"So, if we've got limited time left, we should probably get to the main event," he said, gently lifting her off him and sitting up.

She knew immediately what he meant. "Are you sure? There's no rush, if you're not ready."

"Oh, I'm ready." He'd learned, that afternoon, that she could hear a smile in his voice if he were joking, so he made sure to speak that way in order for her to have cues to his delivery. Sure enough, her mouth curved into her own smile, and she nodded.

How should they do this? Sitting would be uncomfortable, twisted sideways as they'd have to be, and he was so much taller…

"How about I sit on the back of the sofa, and you stand in front of me?"

She nodded. "That'll do."

He guided her around to the back of the sofa, positioned as it was in the middle of the room, and dropped his ass on the headrest. With a gentle hand at her elbow, he steered her between his big feet, his long legs spread to either side. He thought, for the first time, how vulnerable a woman must be, during sex, all opened up with a man between her thighs.

"Please don't feel awkward," Sansa murmured. "I won't be rough."

"You won't hurt me," he told her gravely.

"No, Sandor, I won't hurt you."

She lifted her hands slowly, carefully, as if approaching a wild thing, and maybe she was. Sandor wiped his palms down his jeans, barely able to keep from lurching up and sprinting from the apartment. He'd experienced dozens of rejections, once a woman saw his scars, and had learned to accept it and move on, but he didn't think he'd be able to cope as easily if Sansa were repulsed by him. Sandor beat back his misgivings, trying to focus instead on her dreamy expression and unfocused china-blue gaze and parted lips close enough to bite into like ripe berries.

Her cool fingertips felt like the patter of rain on his skin. The skin that could still feel it, that was. The nerve endings in his scars were mostly dead, so while he felt a delicate tickle on the good side of his face, on the bad side it was the merest hint of sensation. Sansa brushed the tips of his eyelashes and traced his lips. She smoothed out the creases of tension in his forehead and between his eyes, trailed down his cheeks, cupped his jaw and combed through his beard. Then she wrapped her hands around his neck, slid them down to his shoulders, then back up again to hold his face.

He held his breath, waiting for her verdict.

Finally, she spoke. "I think, Sandor, that you're the most beautiful thing I've never seen."

Then she leaned in and kissed him. She kissed his mouth, she kissed his jaw, she kissed his beard and his chin. She kissed his eyelids. She kissed his forehead, and then his big bumpy nose. Slowly, lingeringly, deliberately, she kissed every inch of his cheeks, leaving little damp impressions that sank into his skin like a healing salve. Almost, _almost_ he could imagine the scars fading, the ridges smoothing, the patchy mottling shifting into a uniform color. She cupped his face yet again, sweeping her thumbs across his cheeks, wiping away tears he hadn't realized he'd cried.

Gently, Sandor put her away from him so he could stand, and went to the bathroom. There, he splashed his face and his damned traitorous eyes with cold water before returning to the living room. Fucking crying, at his age! After all these years! _Goddammit_.

Sansa had remained where he'd left her. He stood uncertainly in the doorway, having literally no idea how to proceed. In his experience, once a woman had realized the full extent of the scars, she either burned rubber in her haste to escape from him, or developed an expression of grim determination, like she was girding her loins before heading into a doomed battle where she was sure to perish.

Not Sansa. She was knotting her fingers together and biting her bottom lip, looking worried. Sandor resumed his position, sitting on the back of the sofa, and pulled her close again.

"I'm sorry—" she began, looking worried. For _him_. As if _he_ would reject _her_. She was beautiful, and adorable, and so sweet it pierced him to the core.

So he kissed her, and for the first time ever, he didn't think about how his lips, distorted on the scarred side, would feel rough against hers. He didn't dread how disgusted she'd be if she opened her eyes and saw all that mess up close. He didn't wonder if the kiss were a prelude to a pity fuck or a freak show fuck or an I-lost-a-bet fuck.

And she kissed him back, her hands curled into his carefully-chosen nubby sweater, her lips parting eagerly under his, his little bird, his Sansa, his dream-come-fucking-true. Sandor ran his fingers through her sunset hair, curled his hand around the back of her head, splayed it over her back.

He pulled her flush against his chest, and put everything he had, everything he was, into it. Because even if she didn't care about his looks, he still had a lot of other flaws and he wanted to make sure she was aware of his talents so she wouldn't get discouraged when, inevitably, he made her angry enough to kill him.

When Sandor pulled away at last, she looked dazed, clinging to him like he were the only thing holding her upright.

"You should bring me home now," she said breathlessly.

Everything inside Sandor— heart, stomach, lungs, brain— plummeted. "That bad, huh?" he muttered, releasing her.

"What?" She seemed genuinely confused. Maybe he had misunderstood. "Bad? That was the opposite of bad." Sansa clasped his face in her hands and laid a humdinger of a kiss on him, winding her arms around his neck and clinging so closely that he could feel her breasts press into his chest.

"No," she continued, panting, when she pulled back at least. "We have to go tell my family that they need to stop nagging me about the horrors of picking up a man at a coffee shop, because you're amazing, and I'm keeping you."


	5. Chapter 5

_Sandor_ _'s apartment, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Later that night_

When it was finally time to leave, they untangled their limbs from each other and reluctantly heaved themselves off the sofa. Sandor had to run interference with Tupelo Honey, who wouldn't stop licking Sansa's ankles, making her laugh so hard she couldn't stand.

Finally they were bundled back up in all their winter gear and about to head out when the three rescues lined up to regard the departure of the humans and their new doggy friend.

Then Ulysses whimpered pitifully.

Sandor sighed. "Want to bring him along?"

"We can bring all three, if your car is big enough for them, us, and Lady," Sansa replied, then cooed in baby language to the whippet, "We don't want anyone having separation anxiety, do we, sweetheart? No, we don't."

"It's a double-cab pickup, so I think we'll all fit," was his reply, so off they went down the back stairs to the empty lot behind the gym. Lady and the other two larger dogs hopped into the back seat, and Sansa cuddled Tupelo Honey in her arms once she was buckled in. She told Sandor her address, he put it into his phone's GPS, and they headed north to Sansa's hometown.

She asked him to put on the radio, then insisted he sing along once he found a station playing 90's grunge. Despite Sandor's protestations, he was not a bad singer at all, and his rendition of 'Black Hole Sun' was pretty darned good.

They were laughing when they pulled up at the Stark residence at last. It was a sprawling timber residence that would have looked more at home in the mountains of Wyoming, rather than New Hampshire, but the rustic quality definitely fit with the remote location a few miles outside the village of North Concord. The driveway, a twisting tenth of a mile of muddy snow and ice, looked like a one-way trip to Broken Ankleville and was chock-full of cars besides, so Sandor told her it would be better to just walk up the front yard.

"It's not a log cabin, it's a log _mansion_ ," he commented, a bit in awe. The windows were lit up and smoke spiraled from a stone fireplace, making it almost a picture-perfect imagine of cozy rusticity.

"We moved here when my vision was almost gone, so I only knew how big it is," Sansa replied softly. "I never saw any of the details."

He didn't know what to say to that.

"Don't feel bad, it's been described to me a hundred times, so I feel like I've seen it." She gave his hand a squeeze and set Tupelo Honey aside to unbuckle her seatbelt.

When Sandor opened the door to let Lady out, the other three tumbled after her and soon the snowy yard was filled with a cacophony of barking and yipping.

"Good thing you're in the middle of nowhere," Sandor commented, making sure there was nothing slippy where Sansa's feet would touch upon her descent from the truck. He took her hand and helped her out, then over a low snowbank. "Your neighbors would be furious at the noise."

"Our family excels at noise-making," she replied with a smile. "It's why we're out here in the boondocks in the first place. Between the dogs and the boys and Arya… and our parties can get rowdy… yeah, we're not really fit to have neighbors."

They crunched over the crisp-shelled drifts of snow glistening in light of various rustic lamp posts arrayed along the driveway, to dogs following in haphazard circles around them. Sandor noticed she hadn't included herself in the group of noise-makers.

"Not too rowdy yourself, then?"

She 'glanced' sideways at him. "I have my moments," she said, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. He was thoroughly looking forward to figuring all of her out.

"I have no doubt that's true," he murmured. She gripped his arm more tightly and smiled at the ground. Sandor caught himself before heaving a besotted sigh.

A hundred feet ahead, the big double front door opened and people (and more dogs) started spilling out.

"Sansa?"

"Lady?"

"Where did all these other dogs come from?"

"Are you sure that one's a dog? It could be a pony."

"Bet you can't ride it, Arya."

Stranger woofed, sounding alarmed, and bolted as a petite figure began chasing him around the yard.

"Arya, do _not_ try to ride it." This from Ned, standing on the porch, hands jammed in his pockets. His command was met by a whine of displeasure and a sullen " _Fine._ _"_

"They're louder than the dogs," Sandor whispered to Sansa. And with the amount of barking going on, that was saying something.

"Told you. Rowdy." She grinned and snuggled herself closer to his side.

A middle-aged version of her, hugging her arms around herself for warmth, offered him a polite smile as they finally reached the door. "Sansa, you're home at last!"

"Sandor," said Ned. He seemed more resigned than pleased by Sandor's presence, but at least it wasn't outright hostility, and held out a hand to shake. "This is my wife, Catelyn."

Sandor tried really hard to grip that hand at one-quarter strength and when the older man didn't wince this time, congratulated himself for finding the right balance of agony vs. wimpiness. When he took Catelyn's hand, he barely touched her, figuring that fracturing the hand of the family's matriarch wouldn't exactly endear him to the Starks.

"Sandor," said Catelyn, the very picture of demure welcome, with a smile that went nowhere near her eyes.

 _Chilly bitch_ , thought Sandor uncharitably. He loathed people who acted friendly when they felt anything but. He forced himself to nod politely at her.

"Hi, everyone!" Sansa said cheerfully. "Who else is there for you to meet, Sandor? Bran, Rickon… is Jon here?"

Ned gave a hasty cough that, combined with his suddenly shifty eyes, had Sandor suspecting something was afoot.

"He's inside," said a boy with arm braces as he made his way back up the porch steps from the yard. He, too, was peering at Catelyn with an inscrutable expression.

"Let's all go in," urged Ned, and whistled to the pack of dogs to follow. To Sandor's surprise, not just the pack of wolf-like creatures obeyed, but his three unruly fosters, as well. The man had a way with canines, to be sure.

Nine dogs and nine humans trooped into the log mansion with many exclamations about the cold and much stomping of feet to warm up.

Sandor found himself in a room that was somehow both enormous and cozy at the same time. It had a vaulted, timbered ceiling and was filled with the biggest sectional sofa he'd ever seen, but when you had six or seven kids living with you at any given time, plus six gigantic dogs roaming everywhere, he guessed you'd have to have accordingly huge furniture.

"Gather around the hearth and warm up," Ned told everyone, chucking another log into the blaze.

Sandor stayed well back from the fireplace. Sansa slipped her chilly hand into his and squeezed. He felt it as if it had been his heart in her hand, instead— she knew his apprehension and why, but she didn't make a huge deal out of it. Just gave him her closeness without a word.

"We have cocoa and mulled cider. I'll go get everyone some," said Catelyn, and disappeared from the room.

"I'll help you." Ned followed her out of the great room. "Sandor, have a seat, get comfortable."

Sandor lowered himself gingerly onto the leather sofa beside where Sansa was planting herself. In all honesty, he'd prefer nothing better than bolting back outside to his truck (preferably with Sansa tossed over his shoulder).

The dogs weren't doing too poorly, though. Stranger had curled himself around Lady in the corner, Ulysses was trembling (whether with terror or excitement was anyone's guess) to be surrounded by so many big furry cousins, and Tupelo Honey had dedicated herself to lavishing kisses upon Arya's ankles with lovestruck devotion.

Sandor found himself the object of scrutiny by most of the Stark offspring. Robb and Arya were staring at him with identical expressions of barely-veiled antagonism. Stone-faced, he ignored them in favor of inspecting the others. The boy with arm braces— Bran- just looked curious; after a brief inspection, the youngest one, Rickon, ignored him entirely, consumed with texting on his phone. The last of the group, a quiet, weirdly-familiar-seeming young man who seemed to be hanging back from the rest of them, had to be cousin Jon.

"So, you're pretty big," Robb began. "Sansa tells us you're a personal trainer. That mean all those muscles are just for show?"

With no subtlety whatsoever, he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. Arya rolled her eyes; Bran just looked amused.

"Robb, for god's sake," Jon muttered with a frown.

"I'm just saying. Gym-grown muscles might look pretty but they've got nothing on strength developed in the real world."

Sansa had told Sandor that Robb was an avid athlete who prided himself on excelling in the triathlon and pentathlon, competing in any he could find in New England.

"Robb, quit with all the posturing," she scolded, looking weary, as if she'd heard this speech a thousand times already. She probably had. "You couldn't beat him up, anyway. He was in the military."

"I've beaten up loads of ex-military," her brother scoffed as their parents rejoined the group, Ned carrying a tray of steaming mugs and Catelyn bringing up the rear with a stack of napkins.

Sansa just laughed. "No, no, you don't understand. He was one of those… Sandor, what were you called?"

"Marine Raider."

Robb continued to look unimpressed, but Ned went a little pale as he placed the tray on the coffee table.

"I specialized in close quarters battle," Sandor added helpfully. "And I teach all the kickboxing classes at the gym."

Ned heaved a sigh. "Well," he allowed, "at least she'll be well-protected when she's with you."

"They'd have to kill me to get to her," said Sandor, "and I won't die easy."

"You won't die at all," Sansa corrected him. "All of you, stop talking about awful things."

Sandor couldn't shake the feeling that he'd met Jon somewhere in the near past. There was something about his woebegone face, his dark curls and soulful eyes, the way he watched them, that had Sandor's shoulder blades itching the way they had when he'd been in-country. The training he'd endured had taught him how to take notice of his surroundings, to memorize the faces of those around him, in case it might be needed someday.

"I've seen you before," Sandor told Jon, fixing him with a piercing stare. He hadn't kept himself alive for ten years in the most godforsaken hellholes of the world by ignoring his gut instinct.

His suspicions were confirmed when Jon flinched and developed the single guiltiest expression Sandor had ever seen on a human face, and it all clicked into place.

"You were at the coffee shop earlier," he said carefully. A spike of anger flashed and was suppressed just as quickly. "You sat at the next table and stared at us, eavesdropping the whole time. I thought you were just amazed to see someone like Sansa with the likes of me."

He leaned back in his seat, hands relaxed on his thighs but his entire body ready, habit after all those years of alertness being second nature. Beside him, Sansa stiffened but, instead of confronting her cousin, she angled her body toward her mother.

"Mom, you had him spy on us, didn't you?"

Catelyn didn't even bother prevaricating, and waved a negligent hand. "Spy? How silly. There was nothing so sordid about it. I just asked Jon if he'd go keep an eye on you, see how you two were together, if Sandor were treating you right."

She aimed a benevolent smile around the table. "And he had nothing but good things to say, so, it all worked out in the end!"

Sansa didn't say a word, but her hands were clenched into fists in her lap. She looked speechless and terribly embarrassed. She wasn't the only one; Ned looked downright ashamed. Even Robb and Arya seemed appalled. The youngest boys were uncomfortable at best. Jon looked even more chagrined.

"You've been controlling in the past, Mom, but this…" Sansa lapsed into silence once more. She looked like she were straining to keep some ugly words behind her teeth.

Sandor knew how that felt, to be disappointed by family when you expected better of them. Anger for himself simmered lightly on a mental burner, but for Sansa, he felt something a bit more volatile spark to life. Still, he grimly yoked it back, keeping his face in its customary blank lines.

Catelyn looked surprised. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but stopped when she saw how dismayed her family was at her actions. Taking in her husband's expression, she seemed to realize the fullness of what she'd done.

"Sansa, I didn't mean it to be manipulative." Catelyn sighed and raked a hand through her hair. "I just have no spare time anymore and couldn't do it myself. Now I'm working again, and still running the household, handling your and Bran's health care, and his and Rickon's educations, I'm spread too thin. It was wrong of me to ask Jon to observe you. I apologize to you all three of you."

She looked at Sandor, and he knew he was included in the apology. He stared hard at her, trying to decide if he believed her or not.

"Mom, I appreciate that," Sansa began, sounding like she was trying hard to keep her voice neutral. "But I'm able to monitor my own health care. Bran is twenty years old and can manage his own education and physical therapy. Rickon has another parent, who can do at least fifty percent of what's needed to get him through high school. The rest of us can share the work of running this place, or you can get a housekeeper."

She sighed and put her hand over her mother's. "You're overextended, and you need to take steps to work that out so you're not so stressed. Because it's made you think that behaving like this is okay, and it's not. I mean, did you listen to yourself? You only asked Jon— who you know darned well can't deny you anything— because you couldn't do it yourself. It's not something that should be done at all! Whether it was Jon or you, it was wrong. "

Then Sansa turned to her father. "Dad, you have to help Mom with this. She shouldn't feel like everything is all on her."

To his credit, Ned didn't seem resentful of being scolded by his daughter, just thoughtful and more than a little abashed. "I will," he promised.

"So, Jon, you completed your reconnaissance mission." Sandor fixed his gaze on the young man. "Did you share your findings with everyone else?"

"Just Aunt Cat and Uncle Ned," Jon mumbled. Sandor had to admit that the kid looked wretchedly regretful about his part in this farce.

"Might as well brief everyone else, since the gang's all here," he commented blandly.

"Yes, Jon," Sansa said, her tone arch. "Describe how _terrible_ Sandor has been to me, so Robb and Arya understand, too."

With all eyes on him, Jon's dark hair was stark against his pallor, and his eyes bleak. It was clear he felt terrible. Sandor awarded him mental points for having a staunch conscience, if not necessarily the fortitude to deny his aunt's request.

"I'm not going to give up all the details. It wasn't right of me to watch and listen, and I'm not going to make it worse by revealing the private things they discussed."

He met Sandor's eyes and, for the first time, didn't flinch. "He has a good job, seems quite successful, actually. He's interested in her work— I saw him use his phone to buy the music Sansa's doing for Sevenmas this year after she mentioned it—"

"Oh, you did?" she said happily to Sandor, reaching sideways to take his hand. He felt self-conscious but threaded his fingers with hers and convinced himself to enjoy the show of solidarity to her family.

"-doesn't try to distract Lady, doesn't treat Sansa like she's broken or stupid. He's generous and kind and respectful-"

Jon paused, clearly selecting his words with care before continuing. Sandor felt his neck heating, feeling bizarre to sit silently while a stranger praised him.

"There was a tense moment, when Sansa accidentally brought up something that he didn't want to discuss, but he explained himself instead of getting hostile or defensive as many people would have. And when she asked him to do something that he obviously didn't want to go along with, he did it anyway."

Jon flashed a fond grin at Sansa, though she couldn't see it. "I don't think he's any better at refusing her than the rest of us are."

She seemed to sense that grin, though, because she smiled in his direction, clearly bestowing forgiveness upon him like a benevolent queen. He looked accordingly relieved.

"That's as it should be," Sansa joked. "Everyone should agree with me, all the time."

Several exclamations of "pfft" could be heard from around the table; Sandor counted it from at least five of them, and there was one "fuck that shit" from Arya.

"Well, we've shown him the worst we've got, and he hasn't run screaming," Bran commented at last.

 _This_ was the worst they could do? Sandor felt like he had fallen into the middle of a Disney movie. He thought back on his father's violent tirades, his mother's alcoholism as coping mechanism, and Gregor—

 _Gregor_ —

"Nothing any of you try could make me run screaming," Sandor said. "Even if all eight of you tried at once. _And_ the dogs."

Sansa's hand squeezed his again; he'd told her about his parents in addition to revealing Gregor's part in causing Sandor's scars. He turned his head to find her 'looking' at him, and rued yet again that when he gazed into those blue eyes of hers, she wasn't able to tell.

"How can you give each other lovesick looks like that if one of you can't even see?" demanded Arya. "It's nauseating."

Sandor jerked his face forward and felt the good side of it heat with what he was appalled to realize was a blush.

They were all watching him, analyzing him with Sansa. Judging by the soft smiles on the faces of Ned, Jon, and Bran— and the not-thrilled-but-tolerant grimaces of Catelyn, Robb, and Arya, it appeared that acting like a besotted fool had convinced them that he meant her no harm.

"Well, this has been a slice of heaven," said Rickon, standing and stretching, his sweatshirt riding up to reveal a bony pelvis and freckled belly. "But I'm going to bed." And he left. Not big on ceremony, was Rickon.

"Yes, it is getting late," murmured Catelyn, and began gathering empty mugs onto the tray.

"That's Mom's subtle way of telling you to get the hell out," Robb said with a grin, this one devoid of earlier's blatant hostility. He clapped Sandor on the shoulder and ambled off.

"Good to meet you," said Bran, wobbling to his feet. "Let's go, Summer." One of the dogs left the rest and followed him out of the room.

" _Bye_ ," was all Arya said as she departed, but her tone was so belligerent that Sansa tutted at her. Sandor just slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze.

"It's fine," he rumbled in her ear. He had a sneaking suspicion that Arya and he were far more similar than they realized.

"I'll walk you out." She snugged herself close into his side as she escorted him to the door.

"Are they all gone?" she whispered, stepping onto the porch.

He glanced back to find Ned not-so-subtly puttering around, straightening throw pillows between darting glances their way. Sandor whistled for his dogs to follow, then stepped out after them and shut the door.

"Now they are."

"Today was wonderful. Family craziness aside, that is. I… I really like you, Sandor. Can we keep seeing each other? Maybe more often than just Thursdays?" She was blushing, whether from cold or shyness he couldn't tell, but it was fucking cute. She hugged herself, cold, making the buboes on her sweater shift like they were alive. He had to talk her into getting rid of that sweater.

"Yeah. As often as you want." He drew her close to his chest, wrapping his jacket around her. The puff of her breath against his throat, her soft breasts against him, the smell of snow and a dark velvet sky full of stars wheeling overhead. The world seemed perfect.

"Our first Sevenmas concert is tomorrow night, and I'll be performing every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until the new year. But after that, my weekends are more regular, so we can go on normal dates."

"Doesn't have to only be on weekend nights. I don't mind seeing you on Mondays and Tuesdays." Any day of the week, really.

Sansa yipped in surprise. Sandor glanced down to find Tupelo Honey licking her ankles with fervor. Ulysses was quaking, probably with cold. Stranger just surveyed the vast yard with the thousand-yard stare of an emperor pleased with his domain.

"Gotta get home before Ulysses freezes solid." He gently disentangled himself from her after one last nuzzle of her hair.

"Okay." She sounded as reluctant as he to part, to Sandor's gratification.

He kissed her, gently at first, but deeper when she melted against him like a frothy meringue. She was so responsive, and had the unerring instincts of a natural.

 _Oh, sex with her was going to be so damned good._ He decided to take a chance and tell her so.

"I can't wait," she said, her breath coming a little fast. "I haven't had any damned good sex yet. Really looking forward to it."

One last peck on the lips, and he peeled himself away from her, the dogs frolicking in the churned-up snow at his feet.

"I'll text you!" she called from the porch. "You be sure to text me back."

He looked back at her, hopping from one sock-clad foot to the other to avoid the cold porch planks, arms around her waist to keep warm. The sallow porch light shone on her hair, giving her a ruddy halo.

 _I love her,_ he thought.

It didn't alarm him as he'd thought it would. He stared at her another few moments, smiling stupidly and incredibly glad no one was there to see.

"Go inside, little bird," he called to her.

She beamed at him and spun around, hands outstretched before her to find the door. When it shut behind her, Sandor turned and made his way to his truck, plopping Tupelo Honey onto a seat when she couldn't jump high enough to get in by herself.

He drove home without any music on, enjoying the serenity around him on the remote country roads until he got back to the city. After one last potty trip for the dogs, they all trouped upstairs. Once in bed, surrounded on the bed by dogs despite his half-hearted attempts to push them off, he let out a breath that he felt like he'd been holding in for a long, long time.

 _I love her._

Then he fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

_Elia Martell Memorial Philharmonic Hall, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _First week of December, Friday night_

"I've never seen you like this, Sansa," said Brienne as she made the final touches on Sansa's makeup. Brienne did not wear makeup herself, nor even wear a dress during their performances, but she was a dab hand at putting it on other people. "You haven't stopped smiling once since you got here."

Fellow soprano Daenerys, alto Margaery, and Brienne ( _and_ her double bass) were all jammed into one of the tiny dressing rooms, wrapping up the usual prep before going on stage.

"I'm in love," Sansa said happily.

"We know, because you've said it 100 times in the last hour," Margaery retorted. "Are you ever going to tell us anything about him, or just keep bleating the same thing over and over?"

"I'm not bleating," Sansa protested, feeling unduly persecuted.

"You kind of are," whispered Dany as she leaned past Brienne to reach for a lipstick.

" _Et tu, Brute_?" As another soprano, Sansa considered herself probably closest to Dany. They had the same role, and practiced together often. "This is a shocking betrayal."

Dany just laughed at her. "Just describe him already. Dang. We're desperate to learn all about him, here."

"Well, he's enormous," Sansa began, stopping short when they all burst into laughter, then compressing her lips when she realized what they were laughing about. "I don't mean… that part," she clarified delicately.

"Oh, god, he's hung like a cocktail weenie? That's tragic," moaned Margaery in fake despair.

"No! At least I'm pretty sure he's not." Sansa thought back on yesterday's adventures in snogging. She'd laid on top of him for two hours, making out pretty heavily. Second base had been reached, and they'd almost made it to third when her ridiculous family had started blowing up her phone. There'd been a bulge, and it definitely was not on the scale of a cocktail weenie. More of a kielbasa, if they were rating things by sausage size.

"You haven't… experienced… it yet?" Dany sounded aghast. Margaery was frozen silent in shock. Even Brienne made a surprised little sound, and she tried to have as little to do with weenies, cocktail or otherwise, as was possible.

"We've only known each other a month!" Sansa exclaimed, defensive. "We've only been on three dates! He only met my family yesterday!"

Margaery's state of quiet shattered when she began cackling. Dany giggled behind her hand. Brienne, kind as ever, didn't laugh, but Sansa could tell she was amused, too.

"Listen, I know I'm… old-fashioned. But I only have either bad experience or no experience at all when it comes to men so I take things slowly and carefully," she sniffed.

"Oh, Sansa, we know," said Margaery, and gave her a quick one-armed hug before resuming her love affair with her mascara wand. "And you're not wrong for being old-fashioned, if that's what you want to do. You gotta go at your own pace and be comfortable. It's just… in this modern day and age, it's unusual to hear about people meeting the other's family before knockin' dem boots, you know?"

"I will never understand people who have one-night stands with strangers," Sansa said mournfully. "It seems so… gross."

"Not if you do it right," said Dany, ever mischievous. Even Sansa had to laugh at that.

"So tell us about him. Sandor, isn't it?" Brienne prompted. She was nearly done with the cat eye liner that Sansa imagined probably looked pretty good on her.

"Yes, _Sandor._ " She sighed fondly. "Like I said, he's enormous, not because he's hung or whatever, though he probably is because he's perfect, but because he's six and a half feet tall and built like a brick outhouse." She gave that some thought. "Like _two_ brick outhouses," she corrected, in hindsight.

"Perfect, huh?" Margaery huffed out a laugh and capped the mascara tube before tossing it into her bag. "What's your definition of 'perfect', then? I'm thinking it might be a little different from mine."

"He's funny and smart. He's loyal to his friends, dedicated to his job. He's not at all stingy with his money. He's truthful and reliable. He's very perceptive and sensitive, though I think he'd deny it. He'd deny all of it but the honest part, in fact."

"He sounds like a freaking saint." Margaery's tone was wry with disbelief.

Sansa laughed. "Oh, god, no. He cusses like a sailor. No, what's worse than a sailor? A construction worker?"

" _Two_ construction workers," commented Dany with a smile.

Sansa grinned. "He's impatient, short-tempered, pessimistic, argumentative… hates spending time with people… brutally honest rather than polite…"

"Okay, now he sounds like an asshole." Margaery peered at her over her lip liner. "How can you spend time with someone who treats you like that?"

"Oh, he doesn't treat _me_ like that!" Sansa protested. "No, with me, he's sweet and kind and gentle and cute." She knitted her fingers together, chewing on her lip for a moment. "He hasn't had an easy life, and he's formed a sort of… tough shell to protect himself, because people have treated him terribly. And they still do, when they see him."

"What's wrong with him?" Brienne's voice was as gentle as her hands as she brushed some blush onto Sansa's cheeks.

"He was badly burned as a child, all over half of his face. It's quite ugly, apparently, and people judge him because of it. Once you get past the outward hostility, though… he's wonderful."

She felt tears come to her eyes, and Brienne's hand on her shoulder tightened until Sansa was wincing.

"Sansa, you know I consider us close friends," Brienne began, "but if you cry and make your eye makeup run, I am going to beat you senseless."

Which was ludicrous, of course; Brienne would moonwalk into the path of an oncoming runaway train before hurting Sansa or any other woman. Knowing it for the joke it was, they all laughed, and Sansa dabbed carefully at the corners of her eyes before Brienne swooped in with powder on a tiny brush to repair any problems a rogue tear might have caused.

There was a sharp rap on the door. Dany opened it to reveal their conductor, Tyrion, who beamed up at them.

"Ten minutes, ladies! You all look ethereally beautiful. Yes, Brienne, even you," he said preemptively, since they went through this every performance: he would compliment her appearance, she would scoff, he would insist, she would roll her eyes.

"I'm as attractive as an old sock, and you know it," she told him, a reluctant grin curling one side of her mouth.

"For every old sock, there is an old shoe, as I have been fortunate to discover in the past year." Tyrion was recently married and had announced, with the musical pieces for the Sevenmas program, that he and his new wife Shae were to become parents in the new year.

"In fact," he continued, as a male voice sounded in the distance and grew louder, "I think I hear an old shoe approaching now."

Brienne turned wild eyes to the other women.

"Oh, god, no." She stood, looking panicked, her arms flailing a little from the elbows, and then dashed behind the open door.

"Hide me or die," she whispered.

Dany casually sauntered over to grasp the doorknob, her body a barrier between Brienne and the rest of the room. Margaery tugged the décolletage of her dress down another inch. Sansa, seated on a tall stool, hitched her skirt a few inches above her knees and conspicuously crossed her legs.

"Ladies! Visions of loveliness, as always!"

There was a soft chorus of feminine thanks and greeting to Tyrion's gloriously handsome brother, Jaime.

Several months ago, he and Brienne had gotten stranded in New York overnight when their flight to Manchester was canceled due to inclement weather. They waited fruitlessly in La Guardia Airport for several hours, during which time Jaime, delighted to have a connection to Brienne through Tyrion, refused to leave her side despite repeated and increasingly desperate pleas on her part.

Once the weather cleared enough to drive home, if not fly, Brienne tried to rent a car, only to find Jaime had just gotten the last available vehicle in all of Brooklyn. Desperate, without other choices, she agreed to share the rental car with him, and thus commenced the most harrowing six hours of her life. Brienne was not at her best with men in general; with a gloriously handsome man, she was rendered almost entirely incapable of functioning.

And the worst part was that, after their fourteen hours of forced togetherness, Jaime had decided he was enamored of Brienne and took every possible opportunity to woo her, to her cataclysmic dismay.

"I'm looking forward to tonight's performance," he was saying, suave as hell. " _The Four Seasons_ is my favorite of Vivaldi's pieces."

"We're doing _Gloria_ , you uncultured lout," snapped Tyrion. "I've only told you four times."

"Be that as it may." Jaime dismissed his brother's comment with a negligent wave before segueing to his actual reason for being there. "Hey, have any of you seen Brienne? I thought I'd say hello."

He aimed a gleaming smile at each of them in turn, jade-green gaze flickering like an appreciative flame over their amply-displayed charms.

"She must be with the other strings," said Margaery, sounding utterly sincere.

"They're in the dressing rooms on the other side of the stage," Dany lied. By the time he made it all the way there, the performance would have already started and his quarry otherwise occupied.

"I'll look there, then. See you later!" With a last dashing smile, he took his leave.

"Not if we see you first," muttered Brienne from behind the door when she felt he was safely gone.

Tyrion just shook his head as he watched his brother slope away. "How two people so closely related ended up so different is a mystery for the ages," he muttered.

"You have your moments, too, Tyrion. Shae has told us about a few of them." Margaery smirked and tweaked her necklace so the pendant rested just at the top of her formidable cleavage.

He only tsked. "Five minutes." Then he took himself off to terrorize the rest of the orchestra.

Sansa stood and shook out her skirts. For the Sevenmas program each year, they always wore medieval-style gowns in lush fabrics lavishly decorated in metallic thread and glittery beads. Margaery wore sapphire blue velvet with bronze embroidery and Dany was in amethyst satin frosted with gold trim. Sansa had stuffed herself into a dress of peridot-green silk with silver braid.

Brienne, of course, wore unrelieved black, her platinum hair gleaming pale in contrast. She crept from behind the door and let out her breath in relief. "Time for me to head out. See you all afterward. We're all going to dinner later, right?"

It was tradition, after the first Sevenmas program of the winter, for their group of friends to hit a restaurant somewhere to celebrate. Sometimes their families trouped along as well, making it a big merry group.

"That's the plan!" said Sansa. "Now get out there before you're late!" She tucked her hand into the elbow Dany offered, and followed her friend onto the stage.

The instrumentalists were arranged in a big shallow U around the edge of the stage, with the vocalists in rows inside the U's confines. Their appearance was met with a marked uptick of applause. The old-time costumes were usually a big hit with the audience. Sansa suspected it was all the tights on the men and the women's exposed cleavage. She sighed; cleavage wasn't her strong point as it was with Margaery.

Sansa didn't often have stage fright when singing; she knew she was good at it, and made sure she'd practiced enough to know her part flawlessly. But this was her first solo, and her hand was sweaty when Dany took it to lead her from their spot with the other sopranos to the microphones at the soloist position next to where Tyrion presided over the orchestra.

She needn't have worried; their long hours of practice paid off, and their voices wove between and through the other's, soaring and harmonizing, and before she knew it, they were done and Dany was bringing her back to their previous location.

After _Gloria_ was finished, they launched into their more Sevenmas-y music, and then came the part that both thrilled and terrified Sansa more than anything: the closing waltz. They had a reputation for closing each program with a different waltz, with audience members encouraged to leave their seats and dance in the aisles.

This year, Tyrion decided that the unneeded vocalists, instead of just standing there uselessly throughout the piece, would dance in the empty space in the middle of the instrumentalists. He had given Sansa the option of slipping offstage, if she felt too uncomfortable with the idea, but Sansa loved dancing, especially the waltz, and assured him that as long as her partner was not too reckless with her, there shouldn't be a problem. He had paired her with Davos, the nicest of the bass singers, who was as careful as could be.

As soon as the first mellow saxophone notes sounded, Davos was there, bowing over her hand as she curtsied to him. Then he swept her into his arms and off they whirled. Tyrion had arranged for the speakers to be just a bit louder for the waltz than the rest of the performance, the better to engage the audience's senses, or so he said.

All Sansa knew was that being able to dance to her favorite waltz, with the music swelling almost tangibly around them, was freaking amazing.

"I think I see your parents dancing in the aisle," he murmured to her at one point.

She smiled stupidly wide, dimly aware that she'd thrown her head back and her hair and skirts were flying out behind her as Davos steered them round and round.

When the music came to its jaunty end, the waltzing couples stopped on a dime, breathless and happy. The audience lost its collective mind, applauding loud enough to raise the roof. The instrumentalists stood and bowed, the soloists were recognized, and then Davos was guiding Sansa off the stage.

"Sansa!" Dany exclaimed, slithering through the press of musicians to get to her. "I think your Sandor is here!"

"What?" Sansa stopped so suddenly that one of the tenors almost slammed into her.

"You said a gigantic guy with half his face scarred, right? There was someone like that toward the back. He stared at you for the entire concert."

"I'm sure that's him!" Sansa said, elated. "Can you bring me to him?"

Dany caught her hand and they began trying to push their way through their fellow musicians, but it was slow going, with Sansa having to cling to Dany so closely.

"What're you two doing?" demanded Margeary as they passed her.

"Margeary, bring Sansa to the lobby. I'll go stop Sandor before he leaves." She stuck Sansa's hand in Margeary's and bolted off, much more nimble without a tall blind redhead in tow.

"Sandor's here?" she heard Margeary ask she left them behind.

Unencumbered, Dany was able to slip and slither through the masses far easier. Being an experienced roller derby jammer for the Queen City Queens didn't hurt, either, because she was unrepentantly throwing elbows left and right in her drive to arrive at her goal.

Once in the lobby, she climbed onto a bench so she could see over all the heads and shoulders towering over her, and rued her petite height not for the first time that day. Spotting not just one large man, but an entire pack of them, she hopped down and began wending her way to them.

The press was particularly tight just before the exit doors, and Dany was gasping as she finally burst free.

"Sandor?" she said loudly. The pack stopped, to the dismay of those trying to get outside— whose grumbles were instantly silenced once they got a look at the size of who was causing the blockage- and as one, all four men (and one regular-sized woman, Dany now saw) turned to her.

The giant in the middle had a grotesque mass of scars over one half of his face, and a scowl to terrify the devil over the other half. Dany had found her man. Or Sansa's man, as the case might be.

"Yeah?" he rasped.

 _Wow, what a sourpuss._ Dany wondered how her sensitive friend had been able to wriggle past the outward personality to get to the gooey center she swore he had.

"Sansa knows you're here, and she's on her way," she told him. "It just takes her longer to get through the crowd."

The scowl instantly fled his face, leaving behind an expression of… well, the closest emotion Dany could call it was 'wonder', or maybe 'joy', and in that moment, he was beautiful to her. She beamed happily, which seemed to alarm him.

Not so the giant standing at his right shoulder, a gorgeous mountain of muscles and sex appeal with dreadlocks and a tribal tattoo coyly peeking out of his shirt collar. He was watching her with the unblinking stare of a homicidal maniac. It should have been unnerving but something about him told Dany it might just be the way he expressed interest in a woman; some men had a bit of the caveman about them. She much preferred that to the practiced smoothness of a Jaime Lannister. It was more genuine.

Dany had a sudden urge to lick him all over, and her smile took a turn for the flirty.

"So don't leave yet," she finished, more to him than to Sandor.

"You all can go, if you want," he said to Hot Dreadlocks and the others.

"I'm staying," Hot Dreadlocks said in a delicious baritone that had Dany imagining him as Iago in _Otello_. He'd gnaw the scenery to flinders. It would be wonderful.

"You crazy? Wouldn't miss this for the world." This from the blond guy who appeared to be made entirely of sinew and smirks.

"Yeah, I'm here for the duration," the woman said, the New York accent strong with her, then turned to Dany. "Ygritte. How you doin'?"

"Danaerys," she replied, thinking Ygritte would be a prodigious roller derby player and making a mental note to try to recruit her for the Queens. "Or Dany for short."

"Dany," repeated Hot Dreadlocks, like he was rolling the name on his tongue, tasting it. She wondered if he'd had some licking urges, too. "Drogo."

"Drogo." She rolled the _r_ of it, just a little, but it was enough to make his eyes, an unusual light hazel, flare gold and green.

Dany wasn't stupid; she knew what she looked like, that people were attracted to her. She hadn't seen a man like him in… well, ever, and it was making her feel a little lightheaded. She was relieved when Margaery appeared in the doorway to the lobby, one hand disappearing back into the mob still struggling to leave.

"Ah, here they come!" she said, turning from him to face her friends.

With a mighty yank, Margaery _pulled_ and Sansa popped free of the throng like a cork from a champagne bottle.

There was a collective gasp, even from Sandor, and Dany knew what they were seeing: a tall, willowy young woman of surpassing beauty, flushed with exertion, smiling, her long red hair tumbling in loose curls and eyes starry with anticipation.

" _That_ _'s_ Sansa?" demanded the last of the huge guys, the one with the bluest eyes Dany had ever seen and an adorable Southern drawl.

"Fucking hell," said Smirky Sinew. "No wonder you've been acting like a maniac lately."

"Shut the fuck up." Sandor's snarl was soft as a whisper, but retained all its viciousness nonetheless. Smirky just smirked some more.

"Where is he?" Sansa was asking Margaery, her voice carrying easily in the vaulted lobby. "Do you see him?"

Beside her, Sandor took a deep breath and went to meet them. "Sansa."

If possible, her face lit up even more. She released Margaery's hand and came toward him with her own outstretched.

"Where are you?" she said, laughing, not quite making a beeline for him. He intercepted her with an arm around her waist before she could barrel into an innocent bystander.

"Right here," said Sandor in the most tender voice imaginable, winning a bit more of Dany's heart, and when Sansa tilted her face up for a kiss, he gently turned her face so their lips could align, because she was aimed more for his ear than his mouth.

Drogo and the rest went abruptly still.

"Holy shit," whispered Blue Eyes.

"Is she—?" Smirky Sinew wondered, not finishing.

"Yes, she's blind," Dany informed them coolly. "You didn't realize, when you saw me leading her around the stage?"

"I thought you were just close friends," said Blue Eyes.

"I thought you were lesbians," said Ygritte. Dany rolled her eyes, none too subtly.

"I didn't see anyone but you," said Drogo. "Go out with me."

He clearly didn't believe in beating around the bush. Incredulous, she turned to face him. "What are you _doing_?"

He quirked one thick brow. She noticed it had a scar running through it, giving him a rakish air. "Hitting on you."

"Is that right?" she murmured. She felt a little disappointed in his blunt-force-trauma method of courting. A girl liked to enjoy a bit of nuance in her wooing.

"Dany?" Sansa said. Dany was intensely glad to be called away.

"Is it working?" His grin was a brief white flash against his caramel-toned skin, which had her reconsidering her stance on his audacity.

Dany took a step toward her friend and then stopped, glancing back over her shoulder at him.

"Maybe," she said, and flashed him a smile of her own.


	7. Chapter 7

_Elia Martell Memorial Philharmonic Hall, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _First week of December, Friday night_

"Ah, there they are!" Ned peered from one of the other doors to the lobby, Catelyn and Rickon in tow. "We went backstage but Sansa wasn't there. Hello, Sandor." He held out a hand to shake.

Introductions had just completed between everyone, and had to be done again. Sandor could tell that, while Bronn and Drogo were a-okay with standing around saying their names over and over— Drogo because he wanted in the little blonde's pants and Bronn because he thought it was funny- Ygritte and Gendry were feeling restless.

"Would you all like to join us? We're going to Ambrosia for Greek food." Ned looked quite genial, but Catelyn hadn't stopped staring at the collection of tattoos on the various exposed parts of Sandor's coworkers. He thought it might be Drogo's tribal scrollwork winding its way up his neck that might concern her the most.

Sandor wasn't eager to be part of a big group, the majority of whom were likely to spend the evening staring at him. But then Sansa squeezed Sandor's hand tightly.

"I missed you all day," she whispered.

"I'll go," he said, almost before his brain had processed the words.

Drogo hadn't dragged his eyes away from Dany once since she'd arrived with Sansa. "I'll go, too."

Dany blushed and didn't avert her eyes, boldly meeting his persistent gaze.

"Ouzo?" Bronn perked up, waggling his eyebrows at Margaery, who only quirked one of her own back at him. _"Free_ ouzo? Yes."

"I think I'm gonna jet," said Gendry. He looked vaguely alarmed at the notion of taking a meal with two dozen strangers.

"Me, too," Ygritte added. There was a tense wildness about her eyes. She didn't like big groups, either. "But thanks."

Arya burst from a side door, dashing between a short, plump couple who looked like a matched set of salt and pepper shakers, almost knocking them both over.

"Dammit, Sansa. We looked all over the place for you, even the cellar, and you're all in the fucking lobby." She was wearing some stretchy little number in dark gray and towering heels in an effort to lengthen herself, and Sandor noted with surprise that she cleaned up well. Cobwebs clung to various parts of her, and dust lingered on various other parts.

Jon, following in Arya's wake, kept Salt and Pepper from tipping over and apologized politely for her recklessness before joining the rest of them.

"There you are," he said to no one in particular with a warm smile bestowed upon the whole group. "Hey, Sandor."

He wore one of those skinny suits that had become popular lately, and should have looked ridiculous, but instead he kind of pulled it off, looking more like an actor heading into an awards ceremony than an architect from a small city in the middle of East Buttfuck, Nowhere. Sandor contemplated getting a suit like that for himself before dismissing the idea as ludicrous.

Arya noticed the state of her attire and swatted at the cobwebs, then slapped at the dust, making her dress slide over her and various body parts jiggle in ways that had Sandor feeling a little guilty.

Gendry, too, had noticed the compelling way all that stretchy knit moved lovingly over Arya's small, fit body. He stared at her while she huffed and puffed, promising retribution for Robb for telling her to search downstairs for Sansa.

"…you know, I could go for some Greek," he said suddenly.

At that, Arya looked over at him, and her big gray eyes got bigger. A tide of pink rose and faded in her cheeks over the course of mere seconds.

"I'm going to find Bran and Robb outside we'll meet you at the restaurant bye," she yammered without any punctuation whatsoever, and then fled as if all the demons of hell were on her ass.

"Greek _does_ sound good, now that you mention it," Ygritte added slowly, gaze traveling with leisurely and blatant interest over Jon. He looked confused, then alarmed, then intrigued, by turns.

"I'll cover our part of the bill," Sandor muttered in Ned's ear. "You weren't expecting five extra guests. Especially not guests that eat like we do."

Ned looked startled. "Ah, yeah, all that exercising makes you eat twice as much."

"Try three times as much."

Ned grinned. "No, it's fine, Sandor. We're happy to have more friends join us."

And he seemed to truly mean it, the crazy bastard— he wasn't just showing off false generosity to seem like a big shot. Sandor felt a spark of admiration for him down in the cockles of his heart… way in the back, on the bottom, in the sub-cockle region.

So off everyone trouped to the restaurant, the musicians arriving a few minutes later due to having to change into street clothes from their costumes. Sandor had insisted upon waiting for Sansa outside the stage door and ended up driving all four women to Ambrosia together.

Once there, they crowded into the private dining room Ned had arranged for the group and found seats around the immense table that had been formed by pushing together nine smaller ones. Others besides the Stark family had arrived, too— Margaery's two brothers, Brienne's father, even Dany's sour-faced brother.

Sandor wanted to take a chair next to Sansa, of course, but his friends stood around awkwardly, not quite knowing where to sit.

"Oh, that won't do," said Margaery when they all went to clump together in one corner. "You have to mix and mingle with the rest of us!"

And she took Bronn's hand, casually sauntering to the other side of the table with him. He didn't so much as glance back at Sandor. Clearly, he had no problem whatsoever at being abducted.

Dany caught Drogo's eye, then glanced at the empty chair at her side; in under three seconds he'd plunked his ass in it and continued his focused perusal of her exquisite little person.

Arya had an empty chair next to her, as well. She glanced once at Gendry and started mauling her napkin into tiny pleats. Ygritte looked at her, then cocked an eyebrow at Gendry.

"No guts, no glory, Bull," she told him. "Ya pussy."

He shot her a fulminating glance and went to take the empty seat. Arya saw him approaching, blushed the color of an eggplant, and looked away.

"Where are you going to sit, then?" Gendry muttered as he passed Ygritte, as with the arrival of three last guests— Tyrion, his wife Shae, and his brother Jaime, to Brienne's intense chagrin— all the seats now were taken except for one between Catelyn and Robb. Robb, sitting next to Jon, chose that moment to look up and run an assessing gaze over Ygritte. A slow curl of his mouth seemed to indicate that he liked what he saw.

"No guts, no glory," Sandor repeated with a smirk. Ygritte was the closest thing he'd ever had to a little sister and teasing her made him ridiculously happy.

"Badabing," she replied. It seemed to be a New York-ism that meant "you know it" or "YOLO" or possibly any of a thousand different things. She tossed a stray lock of carroty hair over her shoulder and moseyed over to the two handsome young men.

"Hey, Big Red," she said to Robb. "This seat empty?"

"Yep," he replied with an expression he probably felt was pretty seductive.

"Cool. Mind shifting over into it? I'd like to get to know the emo kid a little better." And the smile she aimed at Jon glinted like the honed edge of a knife.

"Emo?" said Jon, terror and confusion in equal quantities on his face while Robb just gaped in surprise before recovering and, with an injured sniff, sliding into the empty seat by his mother.

Ygritte plopped down onto the vacated chair. "You warmed it up for me! Thanks!"

Then she plunked an elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, and stared at Jon. "Hi. You're handsome."

"…thanks?" Jon seemed to be mentally groping for an appropriate response. "You're pretty?"

"Good answer."

"That sounded really funny," Sansa whispered in Sandor's ear.

"It was," he agreed.

She skooched her chair very close to his so he was 'forced' to put his arm around her so as to not knock her over with his shoulder. After a brief moment of flailing as he wondered what to do, he draped his arm over the back of her chair. That appeared to be the right move, because she snuggled into his body with a smile.

She'd changed out of one hideous dress into another. This one was a modern dress, made of silky gauze over a satin sheath, but it was the same hideous goose shit color. She still looked like a green pimiento olive. A really _beautiful_ olive. Sandor wondered, not for the first time, if he were losing his mind.

Two wait staff made their way around the table, taking everyone's orders. The noise level was off the charts. Half of them started off a bit uneasy and stiff, but by the time the food arrived they'd relaxed. Various of the evening's guests were providing feedback, not always constructive, on the musicians' performances, and at one point Dany and Sansa had to have a sing-off because there was disagreement about which of them had soloed better. It was generally agreed that they were equally talented, mostly because to do otherwise was to invite injury.

At one point, after the entrées but before the desserts started rolling out, Brienne was coerced into fetching her guitar from her car, and she accompanied the singers— and Tyrion, who had a glorious baritone voice— to a rousing version of "All Fired Up" by Pat Benetar.

It was like nothing Sandor had ever experienced— nor any of his friends, if their amazed expressions were anything to go by— and yet, for the musicians' families, it was utterly normal behavior. Rickon used butter knives to play the drum beat on the table, pretending he couldn't hear his mother's hissed commands to stop. Ned was grinning and nodding, Jon sang along under his breath, Arya head-banged— just a little— and one of Margaery's brothers forgot himself enough to play air guitar with his cane.

When they were done and the baklava, rizogalo, and milopita had been distributed, Sansa nestled even closer so she could speak right into his ear.

"What do you think of all this? I hope it hasn't been too noisy or crowded for you."

He drew her a little more tightly to his side. "To be honest, I thought it would be, but I've enjoyed it."

Sandor didn't miss how his husky whisper was making her shiver. He touched the tip of his finger to the bare flesh of her upper arm, drawing a little figure eight, unable to keep from exploring and relishing the feel of her soft skin. Sansa gasped and glanced sideways at him.

"Something wrong?" he rumbled in her ear. He had exactly zero experience in seducing another person and desperately hoped he was doing it right.

Her answer was to drop her closest hand beneath the table and place it on his leg. Every time he swirled another figure eight on her arm, she slid her hand up his thigh another quarter-inch. He started thinking it might have been a bad idea to tease each other because her hand ended up basically buried between his legs all the way up to his groin, and his erection was starting to get painful.

"Sandor," Sansa whispered, "I need you to text something to Arya."

"Huh?"

She took a dainty bite of baklava, then repeated herself. "Here's my phone. Get her number from it. Text her that I need her to bring me to the ladies' room."

He did as instructed, watching as Arya dragged herself away from her conversation with Gendry to check her phone. She read the text and looked up at him, standing and making her way to Sansa's side.

"Thanks, Arya!" Sansa chirped, taking her sister's hand and letting her lead the way to the little hallway where the coatroom and restrooms were.

Arya returned almost immediately, but without Sansa, and bent low to speak into Sandor's ear.

"I'm going to run interference," she growled. "As soon as our parents are distracted, go to the bathrooms. She's waiting for you."

He blinked at her.

"Just be ready!"

He shot off a quick text to Bronn, telling him to find a way to pay the tip for the whole undertaking— if Ned was insisting on paying for the meal itself, Sandor would at least take care of the gratuity.

 _Sure, sucker!_ was Bronn's response, along with a rakish grin from across the table where he appeared to be making decent time with Margaery.

"No fucking way!" exclaimed Arya, with a sudden slap of a tiny hand on the table, making silverware and glasses rattle.

"Arya!" admonished Catelyn.

"No, Mom, seriously, Gendry is a blacksmith! You know how long I've wanted a custom foil made!"

Arya commenced making an unseemly amount of noise and fuss, even getting up to demonstrate a few fencing lunges, and Sandor realized this was the distraction she'd promised. He got up and, as stealthily as a six-foot-six man could, made his way to the restrooms.

Sansa stood there, hands clutching her tiny purse, looking beautiful despite the sallow lighting and the goose shit dress.

"Little bird," he said, meaning to take her hand but instead cupping her face. She burrowed her cheek into his big palm like a cat seeking another caress, and his heartbeat sped up exponentially.

"Arya got my coat for me," she murmured when he was by her side. "Let's leave before they notice we're gone."

He helped her on with her coat and guided her out of the restaurant and to his truck.

"Where are we going?" he asked as he got behind the wheel.

"Wherever you like," was her response. "I was hoping, after all that noise, we could go somewhere quieter."

"To talk?"

She just smiled mysteriously, looking a bit like the Mona Lisa. "There'll be talking, too, I'm sure." Then her smile faltered. "Unless you, uh, _only_ want to talk."

She thought he might not want to spend the night kissing— or more— with her?

"Sansa, I've been half-hard since you walked out on stage tonight," he told her, "and then completely hard once you started touching my leg. I don't want to do _any_ talking."

Her smile came back, and she reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. "Me, neither."

"…you're ready? It's only been a month. I can wait. I'll wait for you."

She brought his hand to her lips, kissing his rough, scarred knuckles gently. "But _I_ can't wait, Sandor. I've wanted to be with you since our second date." She grinned. "Ever since you teased me with your deep, sexy voice. I've done a lot of thinking about your voice." She touched another kiss to him, this time the tip of his forefinger. "At night." Kiss to his middle finger. "In bed." Kiss to his ring finger. "Naked." Kiss to his pinky.

Sandor somehow managed to turn the key in the ignition with his free hand.

"Right," he said, his voice hoarse. "My place, then." He threw the truck into gear and took off.

After a mile, though, he started slowing as he spotted a convenience store ahead. "I'll… I'll need to get condoms."

"Um. I'm on birth control, and I'm clean." She laughed wryly. "I haven't had sex in four years."

He gave a little cough. "It's been three for me. I'm clean, too."

She 'looked' over at him, and he was once again struck by how her eyes were so clear and direct, yet sightless. It seemed terribly unjust. "Then it's settled."

He nodded, though she couldn't see it. "It's settled."

The rest of the drive to his apartment was fraught with tension, but it was delicious and sweet, heavy with the promise of pleasure.

"I've thought about you, too," he admitted. "At night. In bed. Naked." He'd gone through an entire bottle of hand lotion, in fact. And two boxes of tissues.

"Ahhh," she sighed. "I can't wait to rub myself all over you. Please tell me you have chest hair."

His dick felt like it was strangling in the confines of his jeans. He'd never guessed she'd be so sensual, and it delighted him.

"I do," he managed past the lump in his throat. "Quite a bit."

"Where else?" Sansa sounded a bit breathless.

"My forearms," he began. His mind was spinning at the idea that just thinking about his body was turning her on, but then the idea of all that smooth skin just waiting under her clothes made him a little breathless, too.

"Mmm. Where else?"

"My… my legs."

"Your long legs."

"…yes."

"And between your chest and your legs… how about there?" There was a whimpery tone to her voice, like she was on the edge of a moan.

 _She_ _'s talking about my pubic hair_ , he thought muzzily. _And it_ _'s making her hot._ The rush of hormones and endorphins through his system at that moment was almost making him dizzy.

"It's thick there," he rasped, and she did moan.

"How far away are we?" she demanded. "Please tell me we're almost there."

"I'm just pulling into the lot now." He careened into the parking lot behind the gym and was out of the truck like a shot, bolting around the bed of the truck to pull her down. Sandor slammed the door shut, then pressed her against it and kissed her like kissing her was the only thing that could save his life.

She responded so beautifully, yielding to him completely, gripping onto his shoulders and pushing back to meet him, tongue against tongue and hips against hips. He dragged himself from her and grabbed her hand, pulling her after him.

"I'm going to have to let the dogs out," he told her as he fumbled with the key.

"It's fine," she replied. "I'll get naked while I wait for you."

"Oh, god," he whispered, to himself, really, but she heard it and laughed. "Keep talking like that and I might not make it too long."

"We have all night," she countered. "If you, uh, go off half-cocked, we can just try again later."

Up the stairs they went.

"I only want to go off fully-cocked with you," said Sandor, grinning stupidly. Only with Sansa could he be insanely turned on and highly amused at the same time.

Ulysses, Stranger, and Tupelo Honey went insane with joy that their master and the soft, good-smelling person were there. Sansa gave each a cuddle and a skritch before Sandor tugged her down the hallway to his bedroom.

"Bathroom's to the left of the door. Bed's here. I'll be right back." He stole a kiss, one more to tide him over while he went back into the cold to watch three dogs crap.

While he was outside, Arya texted him. _What_ _'s good?_

 _Everything,_ he texted back. _Especially your sister._

 _Gross_ , was her response. _Broke it 2 parents that S not coming home 2nite. Dad_ _'s not happy about that trick w/ the tip._

 _Tough shit,_ he replied. _Can_ _'t just bring 5 extra ppl & have him pay._

 _U r both stubborn asses._

 _W/e._ The dogs were done and watching him expectantly. _Going 2 have sex now. Don_ _'t text back._

 _Ew._

Sandor grinned and chivvied the dogs up the stairs. Once settled in with food and water, he yanked off his boots and padded down the hallway toward the bedroom. All of the lights were off, which felt odd until he realized there was no point to her having them on.

"Sandor?"

"I'm here, little bird."

The curtains were open and the blinking Sevenmas decorations outside illuminated her pale, nude form on the bed in green and red. He went to flip the light switch, wanting rather desperately to see her, but then figured there'd be plenty of opportunity for that later. For their first time, they could both be in the dark.

"You weren't joking about getting naked while I was gone," he murmured, and ran a hand over the curve where hip met waist.

"Nooo," she sighed. "I wouldn't joke about that." She stretched and shifted as his hand drifted higher. "When are _you_ getting naked? I have plans, here. Let's get to them."

Sandor had to grin at that. He stripped off his clothes, his eyes on her the entire time.

"Nag, nag, nag," he teased.

It was amazing how light-hearted he felt. He'd never had an experience like this before; sex had always been either a drunken muddle, barely remembered the next day, or done in spite of seething anger because he knew the woman was doing it for ulterior motives instead of genuine desire.

But Sansa… truly wanted him. He could see the gleam of arousal on the soft inner flesh of her thighs in the streetlight pouring through the windows.

He slid his arms beneath her shoulders and butt and repositioned her in the middle of the bed as she squealed in surprise.

"I'm going to need plenty of room for what I plan to do to you," he said, and crawled over her to drop a kiss on her mouth.

"What do you plan to do to me?" she whispered shakily. They were only touching where his knees braced over her hips, and his hands over her shoulders, but those tiny areas of contact were like licks of flame against his skin.

"Everything," was his answer. "I'm going to do everything you want me to do, and if you like something more than the others, we'll do that twice."

She laughed again, bringing her arms up to circle his neck. "What if I like everything the same?"

"Then we'll just have to do all of it multiple times until you decide which is the best." Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself onto her, cognizant of how delicate she was and how heavy his body was.

"Ohhhh, god," Sansa moaned, and tangled her legs with his. She slid her torso back and forth, and he knew that she was enjoying the rasp and drag of the hair on his chest and legs against her skin. He kissed her face, her throat, starving for her.

"You feel amazing." She was wondrous, radiant, a fantasy come to life. He tugged and pulled on her nipples, making her gasp and arch against him, then trailed his hand down between her legs. There, he found her drenched with lust, his fingers sliding easily through the fragile folds and over the crown of her sex.

He concentrated on that last one quite a bit, circling and rubbing it until Sansa was bucking against him, her legs spread wide and her breathless gasps hot and damp in his ear. Her hand curled around his cock, trying to maneuver it into place.

"Now, Sandor," she whispered. "Don't make me wait any longer."

"I can't wait either." He helped her put him into position and then pressed forward.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh, god, that's good," she moaned as he slipped deep inside her. "Sandor, that's so _good_."

"Sansa," he gasped. His eyes closed and he lay very still, face buried in the silken cascade of her hair on his pillow, and battled the barrage of sentiment and sensation that threatened to overwhelm him.

This wasn't just sex.

He was offering himself to her, and she was accepting it, accepting _him_. He'd laid all of himself at her feet, like a worshiper bringing a sacrifice to a goddess, and she was benevolently receiving it. The difference between this and his empty experiences of before was shocking.

Then she flexed her inner muscles around him, thick and deep within her, and his eyes crossed.

"Is that your way of telling me you want me to move?"

"Did it work?"

"Very effectively." Sandor slid himself out. The furnace-hot interior of her body was even more evident compared to the coolness of the night air on his sex-slick erection, and when he plunged it back into her, the heat felt even more profound.

"Sandor," she whispered. "Sandor, this is…"

"It's what?"

"It's better than I have words for. There's music for it, but not words. Oh!"

He stroked particularly deep into her, then, and she clenched her legs around his waist, trying to press him even deeper.

"Sandor, yes, yes, oh, oh, ohhhhh! Ohhhhhh!" Sansa wailed, and thrashed under him. The feel of her, the knowledge that she was enjoying him so greatly, tossed Sandor into the same crisis, and he bucked and panted and poured out his soul into her.

"Love," he gasped.

"Yes," she answered. "Yes."

 _Yes._


	8. Chapter 8

_The Stark Family Home, North Concord, New Hampshire_

 _First week of April_

And that, as they say, was that.

Officially a couple, Sansa and Sandor began to schedule their lives around each other, spending as much time together as the laws of time and physics would permit. So inseparable did they become, in fact, that people began to refer to them as Sansaandsandor when they meant Sansa, and Sandorandsansa when they meant Sandor.

They went on that wine-tasting tour, and Sandor insisted on remaining for the bonfire (albeit at the very rear of the assembly, with his back to it, holding on to Sansa's hand like a lifeline). He discovered a heretofore unrealized passion for s'mores.

They went on the perfume-designing date, and Sansa walked out with a bottle of scent that cost more than a car payment. Enchanted, his face buried against her throat, inhaling until he was dizzy, Sandor insisted it was well worth the price, because it made her smell like roses and cream and smoke and snow.

As time progressed, and Sansa fell more in love with Sandor, she did all the little nice things for him that she did for her family and friends. Sansa baked him cookies until she realized he didn't care for sweets like she did, though he never said a word, and then she baked him crackers, which seemed to confuse him, but he still ate them.

She knitted him a scarf long enough to wrap around his neck twice and still reach his knees, which he declared too hipster to wear, yet wore anyway. She also made matching mittens but he apologetically told her that even she couldn't get him to wear mittens.

She would have initiated sex more often if 'more often' were possible but since he was on her the moment they were anywhere private and in possession of a reasonably horizontal space, she hadn't really had the opportunity.

She comforted Sandor when first Ulysses and then Tupelo Honey were adopted. He hadn't said a word, but she knew he was sad to lose them, so she talked him into keeping Stranger by saying that the Cane Corso was in love with Lady and would be heartbroken to part from her.

Which was entirely true; the dogs spent their time together curled up around each other or playing as adorably as two pony-sized dogs could. Since both had been fixed, their love was a chaste and pure one, which made Sansa a little sad, because their puppies would have been adorably terrifying.

Stranger wasn't the sole dog at Sandor's for long; he was soon joined by Lucy, a pit bull who'd been used as a bait dog in a fighting ring, deemed worthless for anything else due to her docile and sweet nature. Lucy was still recuperating from her injuries and infections when they brought her home from the animal shelter. Sansa was utterly still as Sandor described Lucy's fresh scars and the splint on her front leg, and then cried for an hour. She couldn't tell if Sandor were tearing up as well, but when he spoke to the pit bull, his voice seemed especially gentle. Lucy was a darling and took to Stranger, Lady, and the other Stark dogs like she'd been born to the pack.

The human members of the pack, too, were warming up to Sandor as they accepted the fact that he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Sansa had him join them each Sunday for the family dinner, before which he creamed her father, brothers, and Arya at 'casual' football games because he was basically an entire team all by himself. It got to the point where they started arguing who got to have him on their team. It usually ended up being Sandor and Arya against Ned, Robb, Jon, and Rickon, all of whom always lost and then griped bitterly about it throughout the ensuing meal.

When the weather was too bad to play outside, Jon had the crafty idea to try and whoop Sandor at pool, but that didn't end up as he planned. Turned out, Sandor was a pool shark and ended up monopolizing the table so that no one else ever got a chance to play. Sansa won a goodly amount of cash that day for having bet on him instead of Jon, who was later seen looking morose over his defeat.

Ned thought to humble Sandor with poker, not realizing how much of it Sandor had played when deployed, and against men far less principled than Stark _p_ _ère_. His woebegone expression of loss, upon realizing his doom, had almost made Sandor throw the game, he later admitted to Sansa.

…almost.

Arya lured him into the basement to fence and was reduced to incoherent sputterings of rage because he just stood there, as silent and impassive as an Easter Island head, as she whacked away at him with increasing fury. He'd ignore every foray she aimed at him, until he finally got bored or hungry, and then pick her up by a miscellaneous limb and let her dangle, screeching, until she went limp, resigned to her defeat.

When the weather improved to where they could play soccer, Rickon thought he had the advantage of agility over Sandor's bulk. He could not, however, muster a force irresistible enough to overcome the immovable object that was Sandor-as-goalie. So he made Sandor _his_ goalie, challenged the rest of the family, and won handily against the other four.

Bran alone was able to best Sandor, offering a challenge to a battle of video games with his choice of consoles. Never having even touched a console before, Sandor was swiftly and soundly defeated.

"What's your game, then?" Sandor asked Sansa on Sunday, a few weeks after everyone else's specialty at something had been established.

"I'm not allowed to do it anymore." She sighed, looking fragile and despondent and unjustly persecuted.

While he was blinking in surprise at that unprecedented reaction, Arya hissed, _"Karaoke_ ," like a superstitious peasant invoking protection against a witch's curse.

Sansa smiled prettily, as if Arya had complimented her, and said in the sweetest voice imaginable, "It's not my fault the rest of you are untalented hacks," which made Arya sprint for her fencing foil again.

"I think you'll agree that it would be no more fair for you to participate in karaoke than to let Jon play Pictionary," Catelyn said gently.

"Jon can draw like a mofo," Rickon explained between handfuls of popcorn. "Architect, you know. That's why he's so good at pool. All that geometry. We're almost to the point of forbidding him to play pool, too, because of it."

Jon assumed a tragic air, staring into the distance, looking poetic as fuck.

"I notice you don't join in any of these contests," Sandor said to Catelyn. He figured he should try to get along with her, but it was hard, because she was a quiet woman who seemed to prefer observation to participation, much like himself. Consequently, he estimated they'd spoken approximately thirty-seven words to each other in the six months that he had been dating Sansa.

Catelyn gave a becoming blush and averted her gaze.

"They wouldn't let poor Catelyn play in any reindeer games," sang Robb, badly, showing that _he_ wouldn't be eliminated from karaoke for unfair advantage any time soon.

"She can get… a bit too…" began Ned delicately, darting an uncomfortable glance at his wife.

"Competitive," said Sansa.

"Angry," said Bran.

"Bugshit crazy," said Arya.

Catelyn narrowed her eyes at her family and stood, all willowy grace and seething resentment. "I'll just go check on the lasagna."

In the Stark family, on your birthday, you got to have all your favorite foods. It was Rickon's 15th birthday, and lasagna was his favorite dish. It was preceded by viciously hot Buffalo wings, and followed by pineapple upside-down cake. Ned blithely passed around antacid tablets with the basket of rolls, to Sandor's secret relief.

They discussed what to have for Bran's upcoming birthday in July, and reminisced about previous birthday meals, and then came the attempt Sandor had been expecting all day.

"When's _your_ birthday, Sandor?" Jon asked him while they ate. He sounded dutiful and not at all interested, which put Sandor immediately on his guard. _Poor bastard was always getting roped into doing the dirty work for his female relatives._

Sandor slanted Sansa a look while forking up some lasagna. After he'd refused to reveal his date of birth to her, she'd tried her best to weasel it out of him, without success, and now had enlisted her family for the task.

Looking up, he found all the Starks regarding him with single-minded focus. Even Sansa had turned to face him, her doe eyes aimed his way, instinctively knowing how to use any weapons in her arsenal, even if said weapons were duds.

"My birthday is the twelfth of never, Jon, because I don't want Sansa to throw me a party like she's been threatening."

She put down her utensils with a clatter and slumped back, scowling. "It's just that I'm really glad you were born! I think that calls for celebration."

"We can celebrate. Just you and me and the dogs. Quietly. Without a group of people _singing_ at me," he replied calmly, and cut a fourth helping of lasagna for himself.

It had been going on for a while. Sansa did not understand his aversion to being the center of attention, how after a lifetime of being gawked at, he couldn't stand it and wouldn't do it.

"Even if it's just us Starks?" Her voice had gone all small, sounding like the peeping of a wounded bird. He'd learned not to let it sway him, when she did it, even if inside he felt as substantial as insulation foam.

"Will you sing at me?"

"…it's tradition."

"Then, no."

"But—"

"…"

"…"

Sandor plowed through the rest of his meal, ignoring the fascinated gazes of her family at their little interaction.

He had underestimated the determination of the woman he was dating.

* * *

 _Northern Comfort Saloon, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Second week of April_

If Sandor refused to reveal his birth date to Sansa, she would be forced to employ more secretive means of discovering it. She called Bronn and asked him to pick her up and bring her for drinks on a night she wouldn't be spending with Sandor, when he taught a late kickboxing class.

Bronn suggested they go to some dive on the bad side of town. Since Sansa had never before been remotely near the bad side of anything, she was delighted by this turn of events. He came for her in a classic penismobile that had Robb salivating: a '78 silver anniversary edition Corvette. The seat angles in the car were so obtuse that she felt like she was about to hurtle down a luge run.

That sensation was not relieved by Bronn's relaxed attitude toward adhering to speed limits. When the half-hour trip took— Sansa felt her watch— thirteen minutes, she wondered if perhaps she'd have done better to get a ride and meet him there.

"She corners like she's on rails," he murmured in a darkly affectionate tone that made Sansa offer to leave him alone with the car for some private time.

His bark of laughter, as they entered the bar, caused all conversation within to cease for a moment. Bronn slid an arm around her waist to guide her to a table, muttering in her ear, "You're an attention-grabber, girl, so best to act like we're together."

Sansa bit her lip and let him sweep her along. Soon they were installed with their drinks— boilermaker for Bronn, gimlet for Sansa— at a booth with squishy, duct-tape-mended seats in the dive's back corner.

Bronn needed little coaxing to spill every bean he had about his friend and business partner. He was only too pleased to reveal any detail she might ever have wanted on Sandor; he regaled her with tales of their time together in the Special Forces, of their efforts to set up in business together, of their attempts to hook up with floozies in random bars.

Sansa wasn't too interested in hearing about that last part. Bronn assured her that Sandor had usually been his wingman and not a player on the make, as a general rule. She decided to believe him. The truth was that, with those scars, most of the time Sandor had gone home alone, but since Sansa thought he was the sexiest man on the planet, all she ever imagined was a horde of women driven to desperation by his physical charisma and animal magnetism.

Eventually, Bronn gave her what she'd wanted in the first place: the elusive knowledge of Sandor's birth date.

"May 20th," he said, lounging, his elbow propped on the back of the seat and hand dangling. "And I only know because I picked the lock on the filing cabinet and found his tax returns."

"Why is he so secretive?" Sansa wondered aloud, between slurps of her drink. The waitress, who had fresh stitches in her forehead, had given her a dirty look when she ordered it. Apparently, this bar wasn't the type of place that got a lot of orders for gimlets. "It's not that big a deal, is it?"

"Pathological aversion to drawing attention to the scars." Bronn drained his glass and raised a finger to the battle-worn waitress to bring him boilermaker number two. "And he's not wrong. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've seen a woman prowl over to him, in lust because of his size and build, only to have her flinch away when he turned and she got a glimpse at his face. Or how people are afraid of him because of how mean he looks."

Bronn grinned at the waitress, taking his fresh drink and handing her his empty. He dropped the shot into the beer glass with relish.

"Not that they're wrong; he's as dangerous a motherfucker as I've ever met, and I've met a good few." His first sip left foam on his lip, eagerly licked away. "He improves with exposure, but not many stick around long enough to get past that first impression."

Sansa quietly steamed with anger on Sandor's behalf and tossed back the rest of her drink. "Jerks," she muttered.

"Eh, don't get worked up. You can't do anything about it. It is what it is." He flicked a gentle finger against her forehead, making her jolt a little. "And those who do get past it are his for life."

"I'm glad he has you," Sansa declared. _Sandor needed all the friends he could get,_ she thought, swaying gently in her seat.

"He's a lucky bastard." Cocky grin. "But it's not just me. Those other trainers at the gym?" he prompted, continuing at her nod, "Those are all rescues, like those dogs he takes in. First was Drogo… Sandor found him in Boston, just before he went through the initiation to join the Crips. Then Gendry, only a few blocks from here. Same situation, except it was white supremacist bikers for him. And Ygritte was a runaway in New York City. Pimp picked her up in a bus station, got her addicted to crack, forced her to hook for him."

"How did he _find_ them?" Sansa was incredulous, and horrified. That called for another gimlet, which soon arrived, to her relief.

"Lots you don't know about our boy, I see… before you came into his life, he was restless. Used to walk the streets all night long. Ended up being someone's savior more times than I can count. Most times, he just helped them and walked away, but… I think he can smell a person's worth, you know? The way he can smell a lie. Like a goddamned hound dog. Anyway, with Drogo and Gendry and Ygritte, he saw something else, something more, there. He offered them a new chance, and they took it."

Another gulp of boilermaker, and then he continued. "You know why he decided against that climbing wall?"

"No, I had wondered why." Sansa's head was whirling with amazement. And gin. Possibly more gin than amazement. And love, always love, but it had grown, having heard all of this, and now she didn't know if she could contain it all.

"He didn't want to demo the apartment above it. That's where he puts the orphans he rescues." Bronn's tone was sardonic, but somehow a bit fond at the same time. "He sticks them there, helps them get jobs, and there they stay until they can afford their own places. Ygritte had just moved out before he met you. That's the only reason he considered it in the first place."

"But you're his partner," protested Sansa. She poured half of gimlet number two right down her throat. "Don't you have some say over the business expansion?"

He made a sound of dismissal, air whistling through his teeth. "I'm a lazy asshole. If it were up to just me, I'd have run a shithole of a gym and gone broke in ten years. I'd have ended up spending my twilight years eating dollar store cat food while living in a refrigerator box under an overpass.

"But Sandor's smarter than me. He gets the place cleaned top to bottom regularly, updates the equipment, keeps up with fitness trends… shit I never would have thought of. He even got us all health insurance and retirement benefits. So now I can actually afford to go to the fucking doctor when I need to. My telling him how to run the business would be the stupidest thing I'd ever done, and Sansa, my girl, I have done a lot of stupid fucking things."

"But you did at least one smart thing," she said, "you saw past the scars and befriended Sandor."

He laughed. It was rueful, a little embarrassed. He signaled for boilermaker number three.

"Not at first. We were both young and green as hell. Idealistic, all caught up in the 'serving our country' bullshit. He was silent as a goddamned monk 95% of the time and grumpy as fuck the other five. Impossible to get to know, if you even wanted to, after getting a look at that face."

Sansa bit back her irritation to hear Sandor described that way, but knew something more was forthcoming. She bided her time by finishing off gimlet number two and waving randomly in the air for number three.

"Then the Humvee I was in drove over an IED. Flipped the fucker over. Killed two of us, trapped the rest inside, and caught on fire. Sandor was in the Humvee just behind. They'd been ordered to stay back in case there was another IED nearby or the Humvee exploded, but the dumb bastard just charged over and ripped the fucking door off. Put one of us over his shoulder, took another by the belt, brought them back to the other vehicle. Came back, got me and the last guy the same way.

"I wondered why he would risk himself— why he'd gone back to a fucking destroyed Humvee, fire everywhere, which everyone knew, by that point, he was terrified of. Against orders, no less. So after I got out of the hospital, I went and asked him. He looked at me like I was the world's biggest moron, and all he said was, 'You're my team.' That absolute loyalty of his, you know?

"He sees things differently. Most people think lying's a little thing, and dying's a big one. Most assholes would fuck you over for a goddamned Happy Meal. Not him. He'd die for you, but never lie to you. Not a lot of people with principles anymore, doesn't seem, let alone the gigantic balls needed to face the thing they're most scared of. To save someone else, no less.

"And, for all my flaws, I think I'm starved for that. For people who live and die by their ethics. You and your crazy family seem like more of them."

The waitress arrived, wordlessly removed his empty and plunked down boilermaker number four. He drank thirstily.

"He won me over forever with that heroic shit. I'll be his friend until we're dead. Maybe beyond that. So will Gendry and Ygritte and Drogo. He's got us for life. Shit, stop crying. Fuck. Fuck."

The waitress hastened over in response to his frantic waving, offering napkins and advice.

"If you think the way to a girl's heart is to make her cry her eyes out, you're wrong," the woman commented.

Sansa tearfully assured her all was well and insisted on paying the tab, over Bronn's half-hearted protests.

"You're gonna get another chance to see your valiant knight riding to the rescue," he said, pulling out his phone.

"What? How?" As he dialed, she drained gimlet number three and contemplated number four. But she was having trouble sitting upright, so she figured maybe it was time to stop.

"Hey, Sannnnnnnnnnnndor! I'm too drunk to drive. Come get us." Pause. Gulp. "No, fuck _you_. I'm at Northern Comfort with Sansa, and if you don't pick us up, we'll will be stuck here until I'm sober again. That's plenty of time to talk her into eloping with me. I could do it, too. You know what a charming motherfucker I can be." Pause. "Okay, see you in ten. Thanks, asshole."

Bronn replaced his phone in a jacket pocket and grinned.

"God, mentioning you works like a charm. I'm gonna start name-dropping you any time I need him to do something."

"That won't work forever, you know," she said wryly, and put her head down on the on the cool, if sticky, table.

"I'll milk it as long as I can. Waitress!" He drained number four and waved his empty glass at her. "One more for the road!"

* * *

 _Planet Granite Fitness Center, Manchester, New Hampshire_

 _Second week of April_

Early the next morning, Sandor limped into the gym, his eyes sunken and bloodshot from lack of sleep.

"What the _fuck_ ," he rasped, "did you tell Sansa last night?"

He dropped onto the leg press bench, propping elbows on knees and hanging his head in exhaustion. "She spent two hours either staring at me— well, as best she can— or crying. The most I could understand was something about you being the best friend anyone could ask for."

"Well, she's not wrong," said Bronn, deadpan.

Sandor glared blearily up at him. "And then she kept me awake the rest of the night having sex. Literally, the entire night. We did not sleep. At all. She called out of vocal practice this morning, and after I figure out whatever the fuck happened with you two, I'm going back upstairs to pass out until tomorrow."

"Wait, what's that?" Ygritte, who had the ears of a bat and a penchant for dirty talk, hopped up from where she'd been halfway through her usual 500 sit-ups and sidled over to them. " 'Forced' to have hours and hours of sex with a beautiful woman who loves you? Wow, your life sucks hard."

Drogo, having come in at the crack of dawn for his workout before heading to his other job at an equestrian center, had just left the locker room. His hair still dripped from his shower, and he was going to be late, but there was no way he was missing this.

"You look haggard as hell," he commented. "If you're having trouble keeping up with Sansa, I can always step in to help you out."

Sandor shot him a frosty glance that promised shattered bones and ruptured organs.

Bronn started laughing— full-throated, side-clasping, howling laughter.

"I'm too old for this shit," Sandor grumbled. "So are you. Stop that."

"I didn't tell her anything but the truth," Bronn protested around a huge, shit-eating grin. "She asked me a few questions, I answered them. That's all."

"How much truth?"

"Can there ever be too much, really?" Bronn asked no one in particular, his tone airy. Ygritte giggled. Hell, _Drogo_ giggled.

"Motherfucker, I will end you." Sandor aimed a half-hearted swipe in his direction, but couldn't seem to muster much energy for it.

Bronn nimbly sidestepped him. "You'll have to catch me first."

"Damned shame Gendry missed this," commented Ygritte as she went back to her sit-ups.

"He's gonna be heartbroken," Drogo agreed, on his way out the door.

Sandor gave up and heaved himself to his feet. "Fuck all y'all," he mumbled on his way out.


	9. Chapter 9

_The Stark Family Home, North Concord, New Hampshire_

 _Third week of April_

After her info-seeking mission with Bronn, Sansa felt armed as needed with the details she'd lacked. She was relieved there was still some time to make plans before his birthday. It fell on a Saturday, which she felt would be perfect.

If Bronn's insight about Sandor's aversion to attention were correct, a big blow-out or surprise 'do would likely be less than appreciated. Sansa decided on a casual cook-out at her parents' home. The temperature would be warm enough to spend most of the event outside, the event casual enough not to alarm anyone who hated to dress up, and the venue big enough to fit everyone inside should the weather take a turn for the damp.

There would be pie for dessert— no cake, and therefore no singing at him. She wanted to celebrate his birthday, not torment him. But she could still get him a present, and the best present she could imagine was helping him see his sister again.

Sandor hadn't seen Annalise in over three years, just after he left the service and opened the gym with Bronn. Sansa felt it was long past time to correct this grievous oversight, preferably as a surprise presentation.

But first she had to make contact with Annalise.

Sansa went about it with as much subtlety as she was capable of, first getting Sandor's sister's married last name out of him, and a few days later, the town she lived in: Lawrence, Kansas. From there, it was the work of just a few minutes' Internet search to find Annalise's FaceSpace page. She agonized over what to say in the private message for a long time, and finally settled on the bare-bones truth.

 _Dear Annalise,_

 _I_ _'ve been fortunate enough to date your brother Sandor for six months, and since his 34th birthday is coming up, I wanted to give him a small party in celebration. I thought it would be nice to surprise him by having you there. I know you haven't seen each other for several years._

 _Since I_ _'m the one inviting you to come all the way to New Hampshire from Kansas, please know that I would undertake any costs involved in travel and accommodation._

 _If you_ _'d like to phone me to discuss it further, I'd be so happy to hear from you! Please call me at any time at 603-224-4485._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Sansa Stark_

Then she waited.

And waited.

And then, just two weeks before Sandor's birthday, Sansa's phone rang just as she was coming out of her singing lesson.

 _Call from unknown number in Lawrence, Kansas,_ said the phone's flat robotic voice. With a gasp, Sansa scrambled to unearth it from her tote bag, dropping Lady's harness and her cane in her haste.

 _Please don_ _'t hang up,_ she chanted in her head. She flipped open the phone at the speed of light. "Hello?"

"…Sansa Stark?" The woman's voice was hesitant.

"Yes, it's Sansa."

"This is Annalise Menday."

"I'm so glad you called!" Sansa gushed. She groped for the chair she knew was nearby, and dropped into it. "I was beginning to worry we wouldn't have enough time to arrange things. If you wanted to come, that is." She gulped. "No pressure."

Annalise chuckled, and it was so like Sandor's raspy low laugh that Sansa was startled. "Yeah, no pressure."

Sansa had heard that same sarcasm every day of her life since she'd first touched Sandor's face. She smiled. "I can tell where he gets his sense of humor from, already."

"Yeah, all we had was each other for most of our lives," said Annalise. Then, hesitantly, "Has… has he told you? About… things?"

Sansa knew just what she meant.

"Yes," she said softly. "I know all about everything— your parents, and Gregor. And I know how you raised him, even though you were so young yourself." Her heart felt like it was cracking in two, just thinking about it. "I've wanted to tell you for a long time… you did such a good job, Annalise."

She heard Annalise's sudden, indrawn breath. "Sansa…"

Tears started trickling down Sansa's face, absently swiped away. "In spite of everything… he's wonderful. He's so strong and smart and funny and hard-working and honest and reliable and sweet and thoughtful and generous and—"

"Whoa, whoa." Annalise's voice was thick with unshed tears even as she laughed. "We _are_ talking about my brother, right? Sandor? Sandor _Clegane_? Big son of a bitch, surly most of the time, weirdly fond of dogs?"

"That's him," Sansa said, sniffling and laughing. "So I just wanted to thank you. For raising him to be such a good man. I know he must have put you through hell, especially as a teenager—"

"You don't know the half of it," Annalise grumbled, but good-naturedly.

"—but I wanted to let you know, Annalise, that I'm going to take care of him now. I promise."

"Well, shit," Annalise choked out, and then _she_ began crying. That set Sansa off for good, and she began weeping in earnest.

"What the fuck are you doing, little bird?" His big warm hand took the phone from her.

She gasped. "Sandor! What are you doing here?"

"You were late coming downstairs for lunch so I got to wondering about the delay." He put the phone to his ear, pulling a clean (if crumpled) tissue from his pocket and putting it in Sansa's hand. "Annalise?"

"Sandor, I swear to fucking god, if you don't propose to that woman right now, I will come to New Hampshire and beat you unconscious."

He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it, as if he could see his sister through it, then switched focus to Sansa. She was mopping her face dry, nose and eyes reddened from crying. She looked, somehow, more beautiful than ever.

When Sansa hadn't appeared on the sidewalk as was customary, he felt a pang of concern and took the steps three at a time to see what was keeping her, leaving the stairwell just in time for her to to mention his hopefully-roasting-in-hell brother.

What had come next hadn't made much sense, until suddenly it did. _She was talking to his sister._

Somehow, resourceful little Sansa had found a way to contact Annalise, and she was saying the most extraordinary things, things which made his heart pound hard enough to fight its way out of his ribcage. His thoughts were a chaotic jumble, nothing but _You are amazing I love you don_ _'t ever leave me I'll die_ over and over, until Sansa began sobbing, and finally he was able to move and speak again.

And now he was on the phone with his sister.

"How much did you hear?" Annalise was demanding, her voice tinny. He clapped the phone to his ear once more.

"Everything after she said something about Gregor."

Sansa 'looked' up at him then. "You heard all of that?" Her cheeks reddened to match the rest of her.

Sandor was frankly feeling overwhelmed by emotions he tried pretty hard to suppress on a regular basis- shock, amazement, embarrassment, shyness- to have been discussed by the two most important women in his life, and in such a complimentary way. Satisfaction, to hear how highly Sansa thought of him. And, perversely, pride in her, that he could present his sister with such a woman as his girlfriend.

Girlfriend… or perhaps…?

He'd been thinking about it for a while. Months. It had crept upon him; first, deep reluctance to part from her on those nights she spent at her parents' house, and then the desire to share a home with her, to pass all the little mundane moments of life together. Then had come the rather shocking desire to be with her as she aged, to witness the twists and turns of her life as she progressed through it, and imaginings of Sansa at middle age, then elderly, with white hair but the same sweet smile and blue, blue eyes.

It was when the imaginings began to feature children that were clearly a mix of his and her characteristics that he knew. He didn't just want to spend his life with Sansa, he wanted to _create_ a life with her, a family that was him and her and the little souls fortunate enough to have her for a mother.

(He had his doubts about how lucky they'd be to have him for a father.)

"Do it now, Sandor. Ask her _right now_. Put this on speaker phone. I want to hear it."

Annalise's voice was a whip-crack of command, and normally Sandor would have felt entirely free to ignore it (and tell her to go fuck herself… lovingly, of course) but at that moment he was feeling… kind of floaty. A little dizzy, if he were being honest, on an emotional high the likes of which he'd never before experienced.

Well, maybe he'd experienced it when he and Sansa had sex. They had really good sex together. That was another thing he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing.

Sandor glanced around the waiting room. There was no one in the vocal coach's waiting room besides them and Lady, and she wasn't talking.

He pressed the button to activate the speaker phone.

"Sansa."

She gave a long, disgusting sniffle. "Sorry," she said, rueful. "I'm all clogged up."

He had to laugh. "I don't care about that." He gave Lady a gentle push out of the way and knelt on the floor at her master's feet. "Sansa, what was all that about?"

She reached out; with her sitting and him kneeling, they were just about the same height. He took her hand and helped her place it on his cheek. "I just really love you, is all. It sort of overcame me, I guess."

"I love you, too," he whispered, acutely aware of his sister listening in and feeling none too comfortable with it. "It overcomes me all the time, but you don't see me blubbering about it."

"That's because you're emotionally stunted." She gave him a watery smile and tucked the tissue into her tote bag.

It was an old, playful jibe she liked to say about the entirely appropriate amount of stoicism and composure that he displayed, and which she seemed to lack rightful appreciation for.

"I guess you'll have to unstunt me, then."

She nodded. "I'd planned on it, actually."

"Might take a while."

"I'm aware of that." She flexed a (still puny, in spite of their weekly workouts) bicep and hiccuped, "I think I'm up to the challenge."

"Even if it takes the rest of our lives?"

Sansa seemed to stop breathing. Her hand on his cheek was trembling. Doubtless she had some idea what was coming.

"Even then," she whispered.

"In that case…" Sandor swallowed hard, and plowed on. "I don't have a ring on me right now, little bird, but if you're serious about that rest-of-our-lives thing, will you marry me?"

She 'stared' at him, frozen, for an endless moment. He started worrying, thinking perhaps he (and Annalise) had misread something terribly wrong. Finally, blessedly, she opened her mouth.

"Yes, please," she said, very politely. Always mindful of her courtesies, was Sansa.

"Thank you," said Sandor with equal civility.

"Fuck, yeah!" hooted Annalise from the speaker phone, making them both jump, having forgotten she was there for a moment. She was bawling, over there in Kansas.

"Ann, we'll call you back," Sandor told her, and hung up. Then he pulled Sansa into his arms and kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.

"Thank you," he said again, when they came up for air. "For marrying me, for telling Annalise all those… nice things." God, he was shit at this.

"It's been entirely my pleasure," was her response. She dropped kisses all over his face, as she liked to do. "You are far more wonderful than you realize. I'm so lucky to have you."

Yet again, he wondered if she'd suffered brain damage as well as blindness. He was just thankful for whatever made her insensible to his myriad faults to the point of mistaking herself as lucky, when it was he who was the fortunate one.

"We should go celebrate," she was saying.

"I like the sound of that." He stood and pulled Sansa to her feet.

"Let's invite everyone to your place for dinner, and tell them then! Oooh, let's have a party! There's time to make arrangements, we can even have the café cater it. Let's go talk to Hot Pie right now—"

"…I was thinking more about having lots of sex, actually."

She looked crestfallen, then determined.

"Compromise is a necessary part of married life," she said slowly, her tone a harbinger for hard times in the future. Wow, she was starting already. He couldn't decide if it were funny or not.

"Yeeeeeeeesss…" he replied, just as slowly.

"So how about we call everyone to come by tonight, go have lunch, talk to Hot Pie, go to your apartment, have lots of sex for a few hours until dinner time, and _then_ the party?"

Wait. She actually _meant_ that compromise shit? As in, they'd _both_ get to have their way, and not just her?

"Sandor?"

He realized he'd been staring at her in shocked silence for too long.

"Yes," was what he actually said, very faintly. "That's… doable. Definitely. Let's get started."

And the litany of _You are amazing I love you don_ _'t ever leave me I'll die_ started revolving through his head once more.


	10. Chapter 10

_The Stark Family Home, North Concord, New Hampshire_

 _May 20th_

They never ended up having a party that evening; they tuckered themselves out with cataclysmic orgasms that made them fall deeply unconscious until it was far too late to arrange anything besides pizza delivery for themselves.

Somehow, they didn't feel all that disappointed.

They called Annalise back, and it was decided that she and her daughters would fly up to New Hampshire to meet Sansa and her family and attend the not-a-birthday-party cookout on the 20th. They'd announce the engagement there.

The weeks flew by. None of the Starks suspected a thing— in fact, they thought the cookout was just to welcome Annalise and her girls. Sandor got to grumbling when Sansa wanted to invite his friends, and then her friends, and suddenly the guest list had over two dozen people.

"They're going to have to be told eventually," said Sansa, ever practical. "Do you really want to have 25 different discussions about it?"

"Fine," he muttered. He'd get through this for Sansa. She was worth it. But it made him worry about how big the wedding would be. There might be as many as fifty people at that, and the thought made his palms sweat. Sandor pondered the odds of talking her into eloping. They weren't good.

At last, the day arrived. After a reunion during which both Sandor and his sister tried, and failed, to be stoic about seeing each other again, Annalise and her daughters Petra and Laurel were established in the empty apartment across the hall from him. Late the next morning, they and the dogs headed up to the Stark home.

The place was a madhouse, and half the guests hadn't even arrived yet. Catelyn and Hot Pie were in the kitchen, organizing the food the café had catered, while Ned and the older boys wrestled chairs and tables and umbrellas into submission on the big brick-paved patio stretching between the house and the pool.

Arya and Rickon were on the dock, casting fishing lines with increasing desperation into the lake in hopes of catching something— anything— they could grill. Bran was fielding phone calls from guests feeling the need to reveal they were x number of miles or minutes from arriving. The dogs greeted their brethren with ecstatic yips and took off across the yard in pursuit of rabbits.

"I had a brilliant idea," said Robb when Sansa and Sandor made their appearance on the patio. "Let's do the barbecue pit-style!"

"That's fine," Jon replied patiently, "except then we'll have to dig a pit."

Robb just scoffed. "It'll take us ten minutes, tops, if Sandor helps us."

"He's not a back-hoe," Sansa informed her brother through gritted teeth, "and it's bad enough you two smell like you've run a marathon. I don't want him getting all sweaty, too."

"I don't mind helping," Sandor said, because he thought pit-style barbecue sounded pretty damned good, too, and it meant he wouldn't have to make small talk for a while.

Sansa was silent a moment, visibly struggling with her temper. "Try not to get too dirty, then," she finally said, her voice perhaps a smidgen less sweet than usual. She still kissed him before heading back into the kitchen, however, so Sandor had hopes that her temper was aimed at her brother instead of him.

"We don't really need you to dig, man," Robb said once she was gone. "Just thought you'd appreciate an excuse to get away from the women."

He glanced over to where Annalise and the girls were being introduced around by Sansa; Laurel had ambled over to the dock to investigate the fishing situation, but Petra was eying Robb with a coolly speculative gaze that he returned with a slow grin.

"Appreciate that," Sandor told him. "Got another shovel?"

Within an hour, the three of them had not only dug the pit but lined it with bricks and heaped it with logs, all ready for to turn meat into delectable barbecue.

Sandor's friends from the gym had arrived, meanwhile. Gendry ambled off to join Arya and Rickon on the dock, and Drogo made a beeline for where Dany was lounging on a chaise in a sundress that hinted at more than it concealed. Ygritte craned her neck, clearly searching for Jon, and when she spotted him with Sandor and Robb by the new fire pit, she dragged Bronn over.

"We were just thinking of jumping in the lake to cool off," Robb announced to the newcomers, then to Sandor, "You don't have any spare clothes, though, do you? I doubt you'd fit in anything we have here."

"I'll just dunk my head. It'll be fine," said Sandor, tugging off his shirt before plunging his top half into the cool water. He used his shirt to dry off and was wringing his hair out before he realized that everyone was staring at him. Having all eyes on him make his flesh crawl, and he physically recoiled a step before he could stop himself.

Quite a few others had arrived as well, it seemed, and they were all gazing, mesmerized, at him.

"What?" he rumbled with a fearsome scowl.

"I think everyone's amazed at how smoking-hot your bod is, Butterface," said Ygritte with a dirty grin.

Frowning, Sandor surveyed all the faces aimed his way. Most turned away to resume their conversations, not wanting to catch the attention of the large angry man glaring in their directions, but not before he realized that they were staring not in horror or disgust, as he had feared, but because he really did have a 'smoking-hot bod'.

"I knew you wanted me," he therefore answered Ygritte, feeling oddly light as he teased her.

"Not fucking likely," was her response. "You know I go for the gloomy introspective guys."

She shot a loaded glance at Jon, who frowned and looked even more gloomy.

"I meant you, stupid," she told him. "Not some other gloomy guy."

His handsome face brightened. Robb rolled his eyes. Sandor tugged his damp shirt back on and accepted a beer from Jon, taking a deep swig.

His sense of ease and belonging evaporated and his heart stopped when Sansa screamed his name from inside the house. Sandor did three things at once: dropped his beer, had his gun out of the ankle holster under his jeans and in his hand, and shot across the lawn to position himself by the open sliding door. Bronn was only a second behind him.

Everyone around them went silent.

"Sandor!" Sansa shrieked again, and came careening through the kitchen and toward them, only to hit her toe on a chair pushed haphazardly into the path of traffic. "Ow! Who moved the furniture? You know you're not supposed to move the furniture." She hopped the rest of the way toward the door. "Sandor!"

Catelyn came out after her, tears running down her face, and beelined for Ned.

Sansa's face was happy and excited as she turned this way and that in her quest to find him. Nothing was wrong. Sandor relaxed marginally.

"I'm right here, Sansa," Sandor said, the patience of a thousand sages in his voice. On the other side of the door, Bronn was sliding his gun back into its hiding place with an eyeroll. Sandor tucked his own away and held out a hand to guide her outside. "Just for future reference, don't scream your head off like you're being murdered when two Special Forces vets are in the house, okay?"

"Oh." She chewed on her bottom lip a moment, considering. "Sorry. Didn't mean to make you worry."

The bulk of the guests were staring at him again, and this time it was in amazement and a bit of confusion rather than admiration for his manly form. Across the brick patio, his sister rolled her eyes at him and went back to chatting with Tyrion, Shae, and Davos. Sandor took Sansa's shoulders in his hands.

"Why were you shouting? Why is your mother crying all over your father? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong! I have good news!" She beamed up at him. "The German doctors… they emailed Mom just now. They've done it! They completed their research, and did a few procedures, and, and they can do it! They can operate on me! They can remove the tumor and I'll be able to see again!"

Shock slammed through Sandor, warring with the adrenaline coursing through his system ever since Sansa's initial scream. Thoughts and emotions tangled up in his head and for a moment, he felt dizzy.

she's fine - don't need the gun - surgery on her tumor - dangerous - will see again - see again - see me - oh god no - she'll see - she'll see me - I'm not - I'm - no - don't look - don't look at the scars

"Sandor?" Sansa shook him a little. "Isn't that great? Aren't you excited?"

He was aware of people watching them, and it made his skin crawl once more. He put his arms around her and lifted her a few inches up before carrying her inside to the living room.

"It's brain surgery, little bird," he said once he'd sat in Ned's big leather chair, Sansa across his lap. "A laser inside your head. A very new procedure. I want you to be happy… I want what you want… but it's risky and I'd rather have you blind than dead."

Sansa flinched at his blunt words.

"But, Sandor," she whispered, "if we're getting married, we'll be having children and making a home together and, and I need to be able to see for that. I need to be able to pull my weight, to do my fifty percent, so that it doesn't all fall to you. It's… it's not fair."

He quirked an eyebrow she couldn't see. "Fuck fairness. You know I don't care about any of that. I'd do a hundred percent if it meant I could spend my life with you." He blew out a breath and rested his forehead against hers. "You don't know how… Sansa, I thought I'd be alone the rest of my life. I thought I'd only have one-night-stands with women who could barely tolerate my ugliness. Forever. If doing more than half of everything is what I have to do to be with you, to keep you, I'll do it. Happily."

"No," she said, stubborn in a way Sandor was only just beginning to see. It enchanted him, knowing that there were things about her he was still able to discover for the first time, even as it frustrated him. "I need to do my part. I need to, Sandor."

"I'm afraid to lose you, little bird," he muttered into her ear. Her hair slid over his cheek, the fine strands catching on the roughness of his scars. "I don't think I'll survive it."

A visceral objection was pounding through him: rampant, almost unhinged fear. Shame rose in his throat, threatening to choke him, because while he'd told the truth about his fear in losing her, he was disgusted with himself for the true reason why.

It wasn't fear for her life that he was so terrified of. He, too, had been following the research of the German doctors and knew they were brilliant and cautious. Sansa would be in very little danger.

No, it was trepidation that, when she could see again, it would be revealed to her what a gruesome sight he was, and and how she was so ridiculously out of his league. And that she would come to her senses, and leave him for someone better suited to her beauty and kindness. The revulsion he felt at his own selfishness almost turned him sick.

"You won't lose me, silly," she was saying with a playful slap to his chest. "I'm not going anywhere without you. Being able to see will just make everything all that much better. I'll be able to see you, when we get married, and when we have babies, I'll be able to see them, too."

"Married?" gasped Catelyn from the doorway to the kitchen, and Sandor twisted around to find her and Ned standing there, probably come to find out why he and Sansa were hiding in here when there were a few dozen guests outside, ready to celebrate the good news of the surgery.

"Ahaha," said Sansa weakly, untangling herself from Sandor's embrace to stand and make her way to her parents. "So, um, Sandor proposed a little while ago, and that's why we wanted this party: not just to celebrate his sister and nieces visiting, but to make the announcement to everyone together."

Catelyn's eyes were still reddened from crying with happiness about the surgery, and now she burst into another bout of noisy tears. Ned pulled her into his shoulder, arm curled tight around her waist, the other outstretched to shake Sandor's hand.

"I'm glad," was all he said, but his own eyes were getting a bit red.

Sandor felt profoundly uncomfortable while Sansa stood there, beaming, until Ned tugged her into the embrace of his free arm.

"Join the group hug," said Sansa, mischief on her face.

"Oh hell no," he rasped, taking a step back. She only grinned harder.

"We have to go tell everyone," said Catelyn. "About the surgery, and about this, and— this isn't enough of an engagement party! I wish you'd have told us earlier, we could have made it fancier… a sit-down meal, less casual food and clothes…"

Sandor blanched. He hadn't realized until that moment that it was very likely that Sansa and her family would insist on a huge to-do in a church, not only more people, but also a giant reception and flowers and speeches and dancing-

"I think this is plenty fancy for Sandor, Cat," Ned told his wife, patting her shoulder. "Any fancier and I think he'd go hide in the garage."

"I still might," Sandor grumbled, making Sansa laugh.

"Okay," Catelyn said, straightening away from Ned. She grabbed a napkin and dried her eyes before giving her nose a good hard honk. "I'm ready for this." She threw back her shoulders and marched out to the patio like a general heading into battle.

Sansa went to Sandor, curling into his side while Ned just shook his head and laughed.

"An unstoppable force, that woman," he said. "Might as well go out so we're there when she makes the announcement." And he left them there.

Arm around her shoulders, Sandor guided Sansa outside— around the rogue chair that had injured her earlier— just as Catelyn began.

"I'm so happy to have everyone here today," the older woman said. "We have two happy announcements to make."

"Let's hear it!" Robb called from the back of the crown near the grill. He'd donned Ned's "kiss the cook" apron and barbecue tongs at some point and looked very silly.

"The first announcement is that Sansa will be having surgery in Germany to restore her sight."

The crown gave a cheer, and happy buzzing floated around them as everyone commented to each other about it.

"What's the second one?" Arya demanded after a minute, threading her way through everyone, followed by Rickon, who was drenched in lake water. He must have fallen or— more likely, since it was Arya— been pushed in. Arya held a string of perhaps six of the smallest trout Sandor had ever seen.

Catelyn ceded the floor to her eldest daughter. "Sansa, I think you'd like to do this one."

"I'd have liked to do the other one, too," Sansa admonished playfully as she stepped forward, tugging on Sandor to join her. "The second announcement is… Sandor and I are getting married!"

This time the reaction was deafening, with whoops and shouts of congratulation and excitement filling the air. Sandor stood there, surrounded on all sides by well wishes and happiness, and felt… good. He thought it would feel supremely awkward and awful to have all those expectant faces turned his way, and then to have to bear the reactions when they heard he was arrogant enough to think himself deserving of their beloved Sansa.

But there was no such criticism or disappointment, only joy. Terror at the surgery— and its possible repercussion of losing Sansa once she got a look at him— still sat, icy and sick, in the pit of his stomach, but he let himself soften, let himself absorb the gladness permeating the area. Everyone there loved Sansa, and they might even be somewhat fond of Sandor himself, he thought. He could let himself enjoy this for what it seemed: a group of people who welcomed him, who were happy for him.

And if it all fell apart later, he'd just deal with it then.


	11. Chapter 11

_University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany_

 _June 3rd_

It was decided that Sandor, Ned, and Catelyn would accompany Sansa to Germany for the surgery. Lady would remain at home. They expected it to be a week until they returned home: one last day of testing to be sure she was in good enough health, then the surgery the second day, a day to rest, then four days of radiation before coming home.

Everything had been set up; once they were back in the States, she would finish the last three weeks of her radiation at Dartmouth Hospital. Once they were certain of her recovery, they would start planning the wedding. Sansa wanted it to take place on November 12th, the anniversary of their meeting at Brewed Awakenings. Sandor just wanted it over with.

They flew to Germany on a beautiful warm day, which felt like a good omen somehow. Sandor, never talkative, had become positively taciturn, his thoughts turning inward and pessimistic, so Sansa had to make efforts to draw him into her conversations or just keep him occupied, stroking his hands or petting his big sexy biceps, to keep him engaged outside of his own mind.

After a lovely dinner at a biergarten, they went to their nice hotel and everyone basically passed out, exhausted from the anxiety they'd been trying to hide from each other. Sansa, pooped from swinging from eagerness to trepidation and back again, was unconscious the moment her head hit the pillow, and resistant when Sandor woke her the next morning at dawn.

The taxi ride to the hospital was subdued, all four offering tight-lipped smiles when they caught another's eye. Her parents were careful to only act upbeat and calm, and Sandor was doing his best to hold himself together, but Sansa knew they were all wound up and apprehensive. She couldn't blame them; she was nervous, too. It was her head they'd be drilling and shooting lasers into, after all.

Her hand was clammy in Sandor's as they entered the hospital. The usual hospital smells of disinfectant and rubber were present, almost comforting in how familiar they were to a woman who'd spent many days smelling them during lengthy stays. She wasn't nervous— not really— but the doctors were going to drill a hole through the part of her skull at the back of her sinuses, then stick a laser up her nose and liquidate and suction out the tumor pressing on her optic nerves.

And that was the fun part.

After the surgery, she would have a month of daily radiation treatments to zap any leftover cells the laser might have missed. There was a good chance she'd have to cope with sores in her mouth and throat, nausea, and extreme fatigue.

"So you'll eat a lot of ice cream, and I'll carry you everywhere," Sandor had said dismissively, trying to minimize her apprehension. He'd been an absolute trooper the past three weeks since learning of the surgery, never once faltering in his support or trying to talk her out of it after his initial protest.

Sansa knew he was terrified of losing her, though. Whenever they discussed it, his big hands would tremble, and there was a false note of comfort in his beautiful rumbly voice when he spoke. It almost made her feel guilty to cause him so much anxiety, even as it filled her with a warm glow, knowing he loved her that much.

At the hospital's main reception area, they asked for directions to the neuropathology department and were told to wait a moment and someone would guide them there. Sansa detached her hand and wiped it discreetly on her jean-clad thigh.

"If you've changed your mind, you can say so," Sandor told her, perceptive as always. "None of us will be upset if you don't want to go through with it. Even if it's while they're rolling you into the operating room."

"That's right, honey," said Catelyn from her other side.

"We want what you want." Ned put his hands on her shoulders. "You have nothing to prove to anyone. If you're doing this for any of us, instead of for yourself, we can just go home right now."

And hello to the tears; Sansa scrubbed at her face with the heels of her hands and sniffled.

"You guys are the best," she muttered into her father's shoulder as he pulled her into a hug. "But I promise I'm doing this for me and no one else."

And that was the shameful truth. Sansa wanted to be able to see Sandor and their eventual children, certainly, but even more powerful than that desire was a persistent fear that one day, he would be fed up with such an imbalanced relationship. That he would not longer be willing to put in the extra effort needed to be with a blind woman.

And if it were imbalanced now, with just them and the dogs, how would it be when they had children? There would be so much more work, and a lot of it would fall to him by necessity. How long would it take before he didn't want to do it anymore? Until whatever he got from their marriage wasn't enough to counterbalance all the exhaustion and time spent doing the things she couldn't? Her heart ached just to think about it.

That was why Sansa was insistent upon having the surgery. It might not work, but if a chance existed, she was going to take it. There was no way she would pass up any opportunity to make sure Sandor was happy to be with her, not resentful or feeling used or burdened to the point where he'd walk away.

"Miss Stark?" said a lightly accented voice, and they all turned toward the speaker. "I am Doctor Jaqen H'ghar. I'm very pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you as well," she replied, her ingrained manners overcoming her nervousness. She stuck out a hand to shake in the general direction of his voice. "I can't tell you how happy I was when you told us the procedure was ready to be performed."

"Please follow me," he said, then as they all fell in line after him, continued, "We have performed it eighteen times so far, with a ninety-four percent success rate."

"What happened with the other six percent?" asked Sandor, a challenge in his voice.

"The one patient for whom the surgery did not work had a tumor that was malignant, and which had metastasized," Dr. H'ghar replied easily, sounding faintly amused. "It was very unlikely to have succeeded."

"Why perform it, then?" Ned wanted to know.

"More for practice than in hopes of success. The patient knew it had a low chance but wanted to try anyway, and we were grateful for the opportunity to have another surgery to our names. We can learn many things, even from failure."

They entered a room and Dr. H'ghar encouraged her to sit.

"I will do an exam of your eyes, and then we go for a last MRI," he said. Then cool fingers touched her face, turning it this way and that, and the faintest flickers of light appeared in Sansa's extreme peripheral vision. "I have received clearance from your other doctors, and you will be happy to know that I was able to arrange for the hospital's best anesthesiologist to join me for your surgery."

Sansa nodded, her throat feeling a bit too thick with nerves to actually speak. Dr. H'ghar left the room, and soon thereafter, she was whisked away to dress in a paper gown and have the MRI and various other things done to her.

After hours and hours, it was over, and they trooped back to the hotel for dinner and another early night.

The next morning, they were at the hospital even earlier. Sansa's face felt numb with anxiety, and no matter how she tried to smile to the pleasant nurse who greeted them and showed them to her recovery room, she couldn't make her lips obey.

Sandor and Ned stood out in the hallway while Catelyn helped Sansa out of her clothes and into a Johnny gown, then onto the surgical gurney.

"I brought your nightgown, and the dry shampoo, and Grandma's crocheted blanket, and lip balm," her mother rambled. "We'll make you comfortable and you'll hardly know you're in a hospital and not at home."

Sansa managed to catch one of her mother's hands as they fussed with the paper-thin blanket covering her. "It'll be fine, Mom. Really. It will."

Catelyn's hands trembled in Sansa's grasp. "Of course it will!" she said with false cheer. "You know me, I'm just a worry-wart."

"She really is," said Ned, good-naturedly. "We both are." Pause. "Though I think we have nothing on Sandor."

A grunt from the foot of the gurney; it, too, sounded good-natured, so she knew Sandor wasn't genuinely put out by Ned's teasing.

"Are you ready, miss?" said the nurse as she returned. "I see you are. I just have to put in your IV and you will be ready."

With a swipe of alcohol to the crook of her arm, and Sansa was hooked up and ready to go.

"I will be back to bring you to the operating theater in a few minutes," said the nurse. Sansa knew she was being given a last few moments with her family before the surgery, and was grateful for it.

She endured her mother's tears and father's excellent attempt to pretend he was fine, and then it was time for Sandor. He leaned over her and pressed his forehead to hers.

"Are you really sure, little bird?" he rasped. "Still not too late. I'll bust you out of here. We can go to Spain and lay on the beach. Eat baklava all day. Get so fat we can't take a plane home and have to get towed back to the States by a tug boat."

"God, I love you," Sansa whispered, and kissed him. "I love you, I love you, I love you. But baklava is Greek."

"We can go to Greece instead. All the kebabs we can stand."

"Those are Turkish, you idiot," she said, laughing. He was hopeless. She could do this. She _would_ do this, for him. "I'll see you soon."

In all senses of the word— she would be with him again, but also she would see him. She couldn't wait.

And then the nurse came with an orderly, and together they steered the gurney out of the room and down the hall.

* * *

Sandor had literally been gutted before, when he had served in Afghanistan, by a dirty knife wielded by extremists trying to slip into an army base and set off a suicide vest. He could still remember the sight of his own intestines bulging out of his belly, and how he'd had to use one hand to hold them in while he killed the extremist with the other hand before going to find a medic.

It had hurt less than watching Sansa be wheeled away to the operating room.

"Easy, son," murmured Ned, putting one fatherly hand on Sandor's shoulder. He realized he'd been shaking and made a conscious effort to calm down, but even then it was more of a constrained vibration. "Now we wait."

He said it with the weariness of a man who'd waited through numerous surgeries before, which of course he had. Sandor gave a short nod and let Ned lead him to a chair, sitting and dropping his head into his hands.

"I don't doubt she'll make it, Sandor," said Catelyn.

He looked up. Sansa's mother was pale as milk, and her blue eyes were rendered all the more vivid in contrast with their tear-reddened rims, but there was a resilient confidence on her face that reassured him.

"She's strong, she's so strong. This won't be a problem for her at all." Catelyn sniffled into a tissue before taking the seat next to Sandor's. "I just worry that it won't work, and she'll be so disappointed. I can't bear to see her heart broken because it didn't work."

Her words faded away into a sob, quickly stifled into Ned's shirt as he pressed her face to his shoulder.

"She can get over heartbreak," said Sandor, His voice sounded more gravelly than usual, from keeping in the tears he was too ashamed to cry. "She can't get over death. I don't care if she can see, as long as she comes back to me."

"She will," said Ned. "She has to."

They sat there for six hours, alternating uncomfortable upright naps so that one of them was always awake in case Dr. H'ghar came to speak with them. At one point, Catelyn went to the cafeteria and brought back limp sandwiches and warm, flat soda for them all, then nagged the men until they ate.

"Have to keep our own strength up, too," she said listlessly.

Sandor didn't taste a mouthful, just chewed mechanically until it was done. He alternated between staring without focus out the window at the passage of the sun across the sky, and answering emails and FaceSpace messages from what seemed like half the population of New Hampshire, asking for updates on Sansa.

Finally, when the sun was setting and turning the sky into a blaze of orange, the wait was over and an orderly was wheeling her back into the room. Sandor shot to his feet and jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from snatching her up into his arms. From the way Ned flexed his fists and Catelyn wrung her hands, they were having to stifle the same impulse.

Sansa's nose was packed with gauze and her pale skin had blossomed with bruises from the IV. She was well on her way to having two amazing black eyes, as well. She looked like she'd been beaten and it was incredibly unnerving, even though Sandor knew the real reason for her appearance.

Dr. H'ghar entered the room in scrubs and clogs, looking weary but happy.

"Everything went perfectly," he told them. "Just as we hoped. It could not have gone better. We are quite certain we got the entirety of the tumor. We shall let Miss Stark rest all of tomorrow and begin radiation the day after. A nurse will check in every hour. I will return first thing in the morning and check on her throughout the day. Sleep and rest will help her recovery. She should wake up in an hour or two."

But she didn't.

Not in an hour, or two, or five.


	12. Chapter 12

That night was the longest of Sandor's life, and he was counting the time his base had been under relentless artillery fire and suffered dozens of casualties. He, Catelyn, and Ned spent the hours alert on adrenaline and terror, and by the time Dr. H'ghar returned the next day, the sun was barely risen, they were exhausted, and Sansa had not moved so much as an eyelid since he'd left the evening before.

After a thorough examination, he brought in the anesthesiologist and had her examine Sansa as well.

"The anesthesia has definitely worn off," said Dr. Patel in a soft voice, "so her unconscious state is due to something else, I'm afraid."

"What, then?" Sandor demanded. He was furious and terrified and hurting like someone was ripping his lungs out.

"It is possible she just needs more time to recover," Dr. H'ghar ventured. "Comas can be very healing. We put people into comatose states quite frequently, when they have trauma that needs complete rest to recuperate. I could give her a stimulant to force her awake, but I think that would be a harshness that might hurt rather than help her."

Sandor opened his mouth to insist that the doctor do _something_ , but Catelyn said, "We understand, doctor. Thank you."

After Dr. H'ghar left, Sandor started pacing, nervous energy preventing him from sitting or being calm. The room was so small that he'd go three steps before having to turn around and pace some more.

Finally, Ned put a hand on Sandor's shoulder and said, "Maybe you should go for a walk. You'll feel better."

Sandor shot him an incredulous look. "Leave? Are you crazy?"

Ned glanced at Catelyn, who was rocking backwards and forwards, hands clasped so tightly they were a bloodless white, her lips moving soundlessly as she stared at Sansa's unmoving form. Sandor realized she was praying, and felt abruptly bad. She was upset enough, over her daughter's state. She didn't need him acting like an asshole, too.

"I'll… walk around the hospital and come back. Ten minutes."

At Ned's nod, Sandor practically bolted from the room after one last glance at Sansa. His mind began formulating a plan for this 'new normal', brief though he hoped it would be. By the time he returned to Sansa's room, he'd figured it all out.

"I'm going back to the hotel to shower and get my things," he informed them. "Maybe eat something. Then, tonight, you go back to the hotel and sleep. No use us getting sick because we haven't taken care of ourselves, when we have to be ready to take care of her."

Catelyn, wide-eyed, just stared at him, but Ned agreed.

"Why don't you get some sleep when you're back at the hotel?" he suggested.

Sandor shook his head. "I'll sleep in the room with her. On the floor, I guess." He glanced down at the hard tile. "Compared to Afghanistan, this is a palace. No one shooting at me."

Catelyn made a noise that was half-cough, half-laugh, but she nodded. Sandor stopped short, staring at Sansa with longing, before making himself go.

He decided against taking a cab to the hotel and jogged, ignoring the discomfort of his jeans and boots. By the time he was back in the room he'd shared with Sansa, he was sweaty as hell and both feet sported new blisters, but both were rendered inconsequential by the lance of pain he felt when the scent of Sansa's girl stuff- shampoo and conditioner and deodorant and perfume and anti-frizz hair glop and gods knew what else— surrounded him. Try though he might, he couldn't hold back the tears that escaped.

With a deep breath to get himself back under control, Sandor stripped and got into the hottest shower he could stand, then dressed in workout clothes: shorts, t-shirt, socks, sneakers. He pulled his hair into a ruthlessly tight ponytail, then packed everything of his into the big duffle he was using as a suitcase.

Down in the lobby, he found the restaurant and ate a gigantic lunch while having them pack more sandwiches for him to take along. He kept his focus on going through the steps of his plan. It was the only way to keep the worry and pain at bay. He always felt better when he had a plan and a purpose.

Finally, he made his way back to the hospital at an easy jog, the duffle slung across his chest. Catelyn and Ned roused from an uneasy nap at his entry to the room. He handed them the key care to his and Sansa's room.

"You should go and have dinner and get some sleep now," he told them, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible instead of sounding like he was barking orders. "When you feel like it, go into our room and get all of Sansa's stuff out of it. Put it in your room or something. I won't be there as long as she's here, so there's no point in paying for it."

Ned stood slowly, his knees cracking. He seemed to have aged a decade overnight. Catelyn, too, was haggard and looked like a hard wind would blow her over. Numbly, they nodded and gathered their things to leave.

"You'll call if—"

"You'll be the second call I make, after the doctor," Sandor promised.

Once they were gone, Sandor pulled a chair up close to the bed and took Sansa's limp hand in his.

"What're you doing, little bird?" he asked, his voice hoarse around the lump in his throat. "What's going on? Are you just taking the easy way out and sleeping through the recovery period, or is something really wrong?

She didn't respond, of course. The black eyes were truly spectacular, and her nose was distended out of shape by the gauze packing. In a way, he was glad she wasn't awake to feel the pain. He'd spare her even the slightest pang, if he could. Sandor pressed a kiss to her fingers and then placed her hand against his cheek, just staring at her in silence.

After a while— maybe an hour, maybe two— he sat back and groaned. The chairs in the hospital must have been designed by a sadist who wanted to make the visitors suffer as much as the patients, apparently. He carefully placed Sansa's hand on her belly and got on with his plan.

Stripping off his jacket, he got out the yoga mat he used to protect his tailbone during sit-ups and began to exercise. He did sit-ups until his obliques felt like they were on fire, and then switched to push-ups. Regular push-ups, one-handed push-ups, sideways push-ups. When his biceps were twitching from overuse, he started doing squats.

When the nurse arrived to change the packing in Sansa's nose and check her IV, Sandor realized that he had been exercising for over six hours. He scarfed down one of the sandwiches, had a shower in the tiny bathroom, changed to clean sweats and t-shirt, and settled in for another uncomfortable nights' sleep. It was marginally better, being horizontal instead of sitting upright, but the tile floor was built for durability rather than comfort, and the rolled-up yoga mat made an unsatisfactory pillow.

The next morning, when the Starks arrived, they looked as exhausted as Sandor felt.

"Anything?" asked Ned as Catelyn took Sansa's hand and stroked it, her expression pleading.

Sandor shook his head. Leaving the cocoon of Grandma's blanket, he stood and stretched, taking inventory of himself. Anything he had exercised the day before now ached as if he'd been pummeled, so he decided today he'd work everything else. With a last look at Sansa's placid face, he went to the empty patch of floor and assumed the plank position. It took a while before his mind entered that smooth, empty meditative state, but the bliss he found in the absence of worry and fear was fantastic.

"Um, Sandor?"

Sandor blinked sweat out of his eyes and lifted his head to meet Ned's eyes. "Yeah?"

"You've, uh, being doing that for over an hour now."

Sandor blinked again, this time out of surprise. His mind had fallen blissfully blank, letting the exertion and pain distract him from the howling void in his chest. His back and glute muscles felt shredded, and his elbows should have made dents in the floor from how they'd been pressed there. He got back to his feet and went to the bathroom, splashing cool water on his face before coming back out.

He unwrapped the second sandwich and ate it, chewing methodically. What was left? He should do some cardio, then practice his balance, and—

"Ah, doctor," said Catelyn, leaping to her feet.

Sandor and Ned stood, too, facing Dr. H'ghar.

"I've ordered a full battery of tests," said the doctor without preamble, "to compare to everything prior to the surgery."

Shortly after that, Sansa was taken away again for bloodwork, an MRI, and various other things Sandor couldn't keep track of. But all were for nothing.

"There's no difference between today's tests and the ones we did two days ago," said Dr. H'ghar, sounding a bit frustrated, "except for what was accomplished during the surgery. I believe that the pressure the tumor had placed on her optic nerves had also pressed on her brain, and this coma is to enable her to heal in total inactivity. All results are normal, her vital signs are perfect. I do not think we should be concerned, just patient. She will emerge from the coma when she is ready."

Apparently, Sansa wasn't ready that day, nor the next, nor the day after that. Sandor kept up his plan doggedly, keeping his panic at bay by exhausting himself with calisthenics and jogging around the block when his terror became too huge to be contained by the hospital room. After four days, Ned had asked to exercise with him. Upon noticing how much better the men were doing, distracting themselves with physical activity, two days later, Catelyn joined them.

It was a full week, now, that Sansa had been in the coma, and Sandor felt like he was dying. He knew he wasn't, the fierce pumping of his heart as he moved through the rote motions of chin-ups and lunges was proof, but he felt weirdly detached from his body in a way he'd never experienced before, like it was separate from himself, like he and his body were two separate entities. He wondered, sometimes, around the 200th sit-up or 300th push-up, if his body would survive when his mind finally left him— would it keep right on mindlessly jogging and doing squats? If his body gave out first, would his mind just float around, incorporeal?

Ned and Catelyn just stared at him when he asked them.

"Never mind," he mumbled, swiping at his sweaty neck with a small towel.

"Note to self," said Ned, "Sandor gets philosophical when he has too much time on his hands."

Catelyn hid a tired giggle behind her hand, looking so like Sansa that Sandor's heart squeezed painfully.

He gave an injured sniff and turned away.

"I'm just teasing, son," said Ned, clapping him on the shoulder. "Trying to lighten the mood." He sighed heavily, glancing at the bed where Sansa lay just as still and unresponsive as the day before, and the day before that.

A wave of anguish rocked Sandor as he fought to keep his face blank, and words burst out of him, a torrent unable to be held back after a week of misery.

"She did this for me. Or _because_ of me. I don't think it matters which. But she wanted to see me. She wanted to look at _this_." He indicated his ruined face with a dismissive hand.

"And…" He sucked in a ragged breath. It sounded more like a sob, even to his own ears. "She wants to have children… with _me_ … and gambled her life just so she could see them."

"I don't think you know all her motives," Ned interrupted. "Because I know for a fact she wanted her sight back so she'd be less of a burden to you. She told us the night before we left. I don't think she could hold it in any longer."

Sandor blinked, speechless. "She's not a burden to me. She was never a burden to me. She's always been a gift I've never deserved."

Ned grinned, quicksilver, and then it was gone. "None of us deserve a gift like her, but we're lucky bastards and got her anyway."

"With how big our family is, she knows how much work that can be, Sandor," said Catelyn. "She felt that, with her lack of vision, more than a fair share would fall on you by necessity. She worried that you'd come to resent her and the children, and your marriage would suffer."

He blinked at her in disbelief. "Did she really think so little of me, that I would do that?"

She approached Sandor, a bit warily, as one would a stray dog one wasn't entirely sure wouldn't snap, and placed her hand— very like Sansa's, long and pale, sprinkled with freckles like cinnamon on cream— on one massive shoulder.

"I don't think you realize how much she loves you, Sandor. How scared she is of losing you. She believes this gamble was worth the risk, if it meant she'd be able to be an equal partner in her relationship with you."

She patted him. "If there were no remedy to her blindness, she'd have accepted it, but knowing there was a chance… she couldn't just sit by and not at least try. Sansa's a wolf, and that's not a wolf's way. _I_ wouldn't try, that's for sure. I'd hedge my bets and stick with what I had, rather than gamble on what I didn't, but I'm just a Tully fish. I am no wolf, with your passions and your idealism. I'm more cold-blooded and pragmatic."

"I'm no wolf, either," muttered Sandor. His head was whirling with too many thoughts and words and ideas, and he just wanted to lay it down on a cool, soft pillow so he could try to wrap his brain around all of them.

She gave an airy wave of a hand. "Wolf, dog, it's all the same hot blood stirring you up."

Sandor dragged a hand over his face, then through his hair. "I'm going for a run," he said raggedly. None of this made sense. It still wouldn't, after a run, but maybe then he'd be too exhausted to worry about it much.

After he returned from his run, he was neither exhausted nor distracted, so he launched into a workout for the day. Soon, Sansa's parents had joined him, and the room was silent but for the sound of their counting each sit-up under their breaths. Ned stopped first, declaring his need to drink less beer, while Catelyn powered through another half-hour of exercises just so she could aim a satisfied smirk at her husband.

"See?" said Ned. "Competitive."

Sandor just shot her a smirk and did another fifty lunges, just to stick it to her, making Ned laugh while she scowled.

But, as always, their smiles faded swiftly, and all three gazes drifted back to Sansa. None of them could be happy for long, with her just… laying there.

"Let's have showers, and then, Sandor, you can help me wash Sansa's hair?" said Catelyn, subdued.

It was something they'd begun doing on day number three of the coma, when Catelyn had brushed out that glorious auburn mane and declared it needed a washing. She directed Sandor to prop up Sansa and sit behind her, tilting her head to the side, so Catelyn could work the no-rinse shampoo through her hair and get it as clean as possible. Now they did it every day.

Ned's contribution was to read to his daughter for hours, his deep voice with its Northern accent soothing as he murmured the words to various books to her. He scoured a local bookstore until he found a "greatest works" of Edith Wharton, Sansa's favorite author, and read it cover-to-cover, and when it was done, he started over from the beginning.

Sandor, meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to put Sansa through some gentle physical therapy, flexing her limbs and moving her to sit up and carefully rotate her neck so she wouldn't be stiff or atrophied when she awoke.

Because she _would_ wake up. She would.

 _She had to._

Sandor would permit nothing less. He'd be endlessly patient, wait as long as she needed to heal and come back to them, but he would not accept anything but complete recovery on her part. If he could have given his life to bring her back, he'd have done it in a heartbeat. _Half_ a heartbeat. The world would get by perfectly well without him, but it needed Sansa. Without her, it would be a dismal place, devoid of any spark of life, lacking any meaning whatsoever.

And so Sandor slowly bent each of Sansa's limbs, bringing her knees to her chest, flexing her ankles and wrists and every slim finger, while Catelyn showered. When she was done, she sponge-bathed Sansa while Sandor cleaned up. Then, together, they washed Sansa's hair.

Sandor sat back against the head of the hospital bead, Sansa resting snugly against his chest, and he surveyed their surroundings. Catelyn was fully focused on her job, stress defeating her face's valiant battle against gravity and rendering it softer, a little more slack than he was used to seeing.

As for Ned, he sat across the room, fresh from his own post-workout shower, elbows on knees and hands clasped between, his gaze on the rhythmic motion of Catelyn pulling the brush through Sansa's hair. The lines in his face had been carved deeper in the past week.

Sandor wondered if this would be his life, from now on. If this would be all of their lives. Sandor became aware of how their existences had narrowed down to pinpoint focus: caring for Sansa, who lay as limp and unresponsive as a corpse. Sandor had seen and touched and carried his share of corpses, so he knew what it was like. The only difference was how her chest rose with shallow, regular breaths, and how her blue-veined eyelids were fluttering—

They were—

"Catelyn," he rasped as his breath stuttered in his lungs.

She looked up at him, and must have seen something in his face, because her gaze shot down to Sansa.

Who inhaled deeply through her nose, then smacked her lips.

Ned bolted to his feet. "I'll— doctor—" And he dashed from the room toward the nurse's station, cell phone already in hand.

Sandor extricated himself from behind Sansa, laying her back against the mountain of pillows, and gathered up the toiletries Catelyn had dropped in her excitement, just to have something to do with his hands while he tried to keep himself under control. Terror rose up to choke him. If Sansa could see- if she could see _him_ — she'd see the melted catastrophe she'd been been with for the past nine months, and—

If she found it disgusting—

And why wouldn't she? It _was_ disgusting, he disgusted himself every time he looked in the mirror—

And why would she want to look at that every day? To touch it, kiss it? Marry it? Have children with it? Spend the rest of her life with it?

Catelyn was cooing at Sansa, coaxing her to consciousness, stroking her petal-soft cheek.

"Mom?" Sansa slurred, sounding like she was waking with a hangover, while still really drunk.

"I'm here, honey. With Sandor and Dad. We're all here. Keep your eyes closed," Catelyn told her. "Your father's gone for the doctor."

"Sssandor?"

He stood, frozen, by the bed. He should answer her, should take her other hand, should sit by her and hold her and—

He did none of those things. He just stood there, like a frightened, hideous statue. He thought, bizarrely, of how shock had frozen him in place the day he and Sansa had met, incapable of speaking or moving at all.

"Sandor?" This from Catelyn. He dragged his eyes to her from where he'd been staring at Sansa, their faces so alike. Sansa would look just like her mother when she were that old.

"Sandor?" Sansa said, struggling feebly to sit up before falling back, panting. She'd been still too long. He hadn't worked her back muscles enough.

He felt abruptly trapped, like the room had shrunk to the size of a closet and it was pressing all the air and life out of him. He'd been in extreme danger while in the military, and consequently he had finely-honed split-second reflexes. He was able to make decisions that would could mean the deaths or survival of dozens of people, but he'd never felt as threatened in any of those situations as he did at the prospect of Sansa rejecting him.

 _He couldn't let her see him._

Ned was back, Dr. H'ghar on his heels.

"Everything is so blurry. Where is Sandor?" Sansa demanded, sounding like a weak little empress.

"He is here," said the doctor, shooting Sandor an odd glance, probably wondering why he was standing frozen at the foot of the bed.. "I have some drops, they will help."

He distilled some liquid from a small bottle into each of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly. Ned put his hand behind her, to help her sit up—

Panic welled-

Sandor fled.


	13. Chapter 13

Sansa struggled upward through what felt like a thousand layers of cotton wool, disconcerting since she was used to waking right away, aware and alert. This muddled confusion was frightening, but her mother was there, touching her face, speaking to her in low-pitched nonsense words, and the fear abated.

"Mom?" Was that her own voice? She sounded weird, faint and weak. She opened her eyes and felt a moment's pure joy when she could see.

 _She could see._

Not much— just some blurred colors beyond a milky film. But it was blurred colors and milky film she hadn't been able to see before the surgery.

"I'm here, honey. With Sandor and Dad. We're all here. Keep your eyes closed," Catelyn told her, fingertips gentle as they smoothed Sansa's eyelids down. "Your father's gone for the doctor."

"Sssandor?" Sansa asked, her voice ragged. Her entire body felt parched, more dry than a desert, but Sansa didn't care about any of that. At the foot of the bed, she could see a large, dark form, with a pinkish blob toward the top that she assumed was his face. She blinked hard, trying to force some moisture to her eyes.

Why was he so far away? She'd hoped he'd be right there when she awoke, would put his arms around her, and she'd cling to him and inhale his spicy scent and know it had all been worth it.

"Sandor?" said Catelyn, sounding more sad than confused.

Why wasn't he saying anything?

"Sandor?" Sansa repeated, starting to get concerned.

Two more forms— people— entered the room.

"Everything is so blurry. Where is Sandor?" she demanded.

"He is here," said Dr. H'ghar, and then the big white shape on the left held her face still with calm hands. Liquid fell, blissfully cool, into her eyes, and she blinked and blinked to distribute it. On her other side, her father helped her to sit up, mounding pillows behind her.

The big dark shape at the foot of the bed began to sharpen and resolve itself into something more human-like. Sansa could see the pinkish blob— his face— began to take on actual facial features. She could make out the darker spots of eyes, a slash of a mouth over a blade-like nose, and the skin on the left side was darker, speckled with red.

Sansa blinked again, willing more clarity to her vision, but when she opened her eyes once more, he was gone.

After an awkward silence, the white blotch on her left patted her shoulder. "Sit quietly for some minutes so your eyes can reabsorb the fluid."

Sansa counted to 120, feeling that two minutes was surely enough time, and then lifted her lids. Now, well-hydrated, the film was gone from her eyes, and she could see the doctor's face peering at her. He was younger than she had expected, with odd hair that was reddish on one side and almost white on the other.

Beside Sansa sat her mother, with her father standing behind her, holding hands tightly over Catelyn's shoulder.

"You've gotten so old," she informed them, grinning when they beamed in relief even as tears began to trickle down their faces. "Wrinkles and gray hair _everywhere_."

"You were the cause of ninety percent of them," sobbed Catelyn, and curled over to bury her face in Sansa's lap.

"Oh, Mommy," Sansa murmured, her hand trembling as she ran it over her mother's hair. Ned, too, stroked Catelyn's back, and with his other hand cupped Sansa's cheek. "Daddy."

Dr. H'ghar whipped out a scope and began shining lights into her eyes and nose. Then he put Sansa through a few tests before declaring that her ocular muscles were somewhat weak and would need to be exercised. He declared that a bout of physical therapy would be added to the daily regimen, to build Sansa's strength and balance back up in preparation for leaving, and they'd slowly adjust her meals until she was back on solid food again after a week (a week!) of intravenous feeding.

The most significant aspect of her recovery would entail starting a month of radiation treatment to ensure any tumor cells left behind by the surgery were well and truly destroyed. She was supposed to have started the day after the surgery, but with her falling into a coma (a coma!) they hadn't wanted to do anything that might complicate her condition.

"If all goes well, you will be able to leave in a few days, and continue the radiation back in New Hampshire. I will go now and begin to make arrangements for that, so there is a seamless transition between hospitals."

He gave Sansa's knee a fond pat and stood.

"And if I see that huge fool of a fiancé of yours, I will scold him to return here."

Sansa's vision blurred as tears filled her eyes; she reached hastily for a tissue, not wanting anything to obstruct her ability to see, now that she had it back. Blotting her face, she thanked the doctor and sniffled.

"Mom, Dad, what's going on with Sandor?" she asked. She tried to keep her gaze on them, but after a decade blind, she couldn't stop taking everything in, no matter how mundane. Even the IV stand was worthy of lengthy and careful study. Her vision was a bit odd, she noted— colors seemed a bit… off. Brighter and a little more blue than she had thought they would be, but it had been so long that she'd forgotten what colors looked like. For all she knew, red really was more of a plum color, and green was more of what she recalled as teal.

"You've been in a coma for eight days, Sansa. He only left your side when strictly necessary. I think he became convinced you'd either never wake up, or that you'd die altogether," her mother said carefully. "He's overwhelmed. Give him a little time to compose himself. You know how he hates to show emotion in public."

"This isn't public," Sansa mumbled, plucking at the neckline of her Johnny coat. She was scared to death that all this fuss had finally scared him off entirely.

Catelyn chuckled. "Any place that has more than just you and him is public, to his mind."

"Let's tell your brothers and sister," urged Ned, and Sansa looked up from her knotted fingers to find her father carrying a laptop over to her. "That Skype thing."

Sansa and Catelyn shared a grin over Ned's technophobia as he logged in and tried to make the connection with Arya.

"I texted her when I was getting the doctor," he said as he typed, "so she could get everyone in one place."

When Arya's face appeared on the monitor, Sansa had a fleeting thought of concern for what she must look like— she hadn't eaten proper food in over a week, her hair was limp, and she still had sleep-crust in the corners of her eyes.

But then she stopped caring what she looked like, because in the intervening decade, her tomboyish little sister had grown into a beauty. An unconventional one, to be sure, with her feline face of wide-spaced eyes and pointed chin— and that wasn't even mentioning her purple hair with the sides shaved, and all the facial piercings, and what appeared to be a neck tattoo, but…

"Oh, Arya, you're beautiful," Sansa exclaimed, and burst into tears. Which then made Arya cry, too.

They sniveled at each other for a solid thirty seconds before a patient sigh was heard off-camera and then a bony male hand was reaching for Arya's laptop, Bran's face soon appearing.

"Hi, Sansa," he said with a warm smile. His face might have matured, but the thoughtful pensiveness would always be there.

"Branny, you're so grown up!" She cried harder, feeling terrible for having missed witnessing it.

"Yes, that tends to happen when a decade passes," he mocked gently.

"San, you look horrible," said Rickon, shoving his head into frame in front of his brother's. "See how manly I am." He struck a body builder pose, flexing a rather stringy-looking bicep, and Sansa started laughing.

"Rickon, you little punk," she said, scrubbing at her face to dry it off. "Where's everyone else?"

Rickon jammed the last half of a Hot Pocket into his mouth and, chewing vigorously, said, "Someone just pulled up. Could be either Robb or Jon or both, who knows." He seemed completely unconcerned as to which.

Off-screen, there was a crash, as of a door slamming open. Footsteps thudded closer, and then Robb was sticking his big old face right up to the laptop's camera.

"Sansa!" he shouted. "Are your eyes working?" He pulled back an inch. "Can you see how much hotter your older brother got in ten years?"

"You weren't all that hot to begin with," she shouted back. It was a lie; with the same dark auburn hair and blue Tully eyes that she had, he was strikingly handsome and, unfortunately, knew it.

"Keep telling him that," said Jon, shouldering Robb aside so he could get in-frame. "His ego needs knocking down a few hundred pegs."

Sansa gasped. "Jon, you really _do_ look like you belong in a boy band."

The face that had been adorable in youth had matured into a face that was handsome in a way guaranteed to melt the panties off every female— and doubtless quite a few males- between ten and ninety.

He drew back, looking both confused and affronted at the same time. "What?"

"Sandor said that, not long after he met you the first time. I thought he was joking but I can see he wasn't— you could slay the hearts of every twelve-year-old in America. Maybe the whole world."

"That sounds terrifying." He frowned deeply. But, like quicksilver, it melted into a smile that was breathtaking in its genuine sweetness. "We were very worried when you lapsed into a coma. I'm glad you have your sight back, but mostly just relieved you're awake again."

Sansa sniffled, about to cry again. "I miss you all. I'll be coming home in a few days."

"How's Sandor doing?" Jon asked. His voice was utterly neutral, and Sansa was desperately glad she could see again, even if he were still a little fuzzy around the edges, because there was something in his expression that made her think he knew more than he was telling.

"He's spazzing," she replied slowly. "The moment I opened my eyes, he left the room and hasn't been back since."

"Hm," Jon said, noncommittal.

She peered at him. "What do you know? Spill it."

"Sansa, you have to know how scared he is of you changing your mind about being with him, now that you can see him."

"I have some idea, but, Jon…" Sansa paused, confused. "How do _you_ know? Has he been opening up to you?"

That would be wonderful, if Sandor could let himself trust another person besides her and Bronn. And if he had to choose one of her family to do it, he couldn't have picked a better person; Jon would never betray him.

"No." Jon permitted himself a brief smile at the idea. "But I saw him, after he learned about the surgery. I saw his reaction. His face…" He sighed. "I've never seen fear like that on a person's face before."

"But I don't understand _why_ ," Sansa wailed. "If he thinks I would reject him because of his scars, it makes me wonder who he thinks I am, and why he loves me, if I'd do such a thing."

Arya gave Jon a gentle shove and pushed her way in front of the laptop. "Sansa, his face is really fucked up. I don't think you realize how much. Just feeling it doesn't do it justice."

Sandor had indicated, many times, how poorly most people reacted to his scars. Even Jon, one of the kindest people Sansa knew, had apparently been thunderstruck when he'd spied on them in the coffee shop, to the point of staring enough for Sandor to make a mental note of it. Sandor was tough as nails about most things after two and a half decades of building up a protective shell around his tender heart, and in all that time, he'd only let a single person through: her. And she had a feeling that, if she reacted poorly to her first glimpse of his face, it could shatter him. Her heart contracted in misery.

"Do any of you have photos of him?" she asked, hesitant. "Maybe if I prepare myself ahead of time, it won't be so surprising and I won't end up doing anything that would hurt him…"

Jon and Arya looked pensive, then both started scrolling through their phones. Soon, 'loading' symbols began making the chat area scroll by as they and their brothers began firing pictures of Sandor into the Skype window.

Sansa thought she'd be prepared for the sight of Sandor's face, after having felt and kissed it so many times in the past half-year they'd dated. But nothing could have steeled her for the riddled network of waxen flesh, some scars blackened, some merely a red that still looked raw despite being decades old. His eye and mouth both dragged down a bit, made less flexible by the scar tissue. It all looked horrifically painful. And when he smiled… somehow, that made everything look all the more gruesome.

And in the middle of all that ruin, his eyes were a startlingly lovely clear gray. The contrast between their beauty and what surrounded it was a cruel shock to the system. Little silvery spots appeared in Sansa's vision, and she realized she'd sucked in a lungful of breath and never released it. She let it out on a wail of anguish.

"Oh, god, that must have-!" she cried, instinctively looking to her parents for comfort, knowing even as she did it that Sandor hadn't had that luxury; his parents had all but ignored him after 'the incident' with Gregor. His father had either ignored the family or slapped them around; his mother had subsided into alcoholism to cope, leaving him to be raised by Annalise, only ten years his senior.

Silence had fallen from the laptop. Catelyn lifted it from Sansa's legs and Ned pressed his daughter's face against his chest, rubbing her back.

"How could anyone do that to him? How could his _brother_ do that to him?" she wept into her father's shirt. "He was just a baby! How could anyone do that to a _baby_?" Sansa clutched at Ned, her throat thick as she sobbed helplessly against him.

"And more than how much it hurt… the way people treated him afterward, like he was a monster, when he's so _good_ … you don't know how kind he is, how he helps everyone, how many people he's saved. Bronn and Drogo and Gendry and Ygritte and the dogs, and, and-"

She stopped, choking, her throat so tight she couldn't breathe. All of his words from the last eight months they'd been together jumbled up in her head. He'd told her of the extreme solitude of his life, being shunned and mocked in school, rejected or barely tolerated by girls and then women, of the challenges he'd had in his career with first the army and even now with the gym due to his face. The silvery spots danced before her eyes once more. The pain she felt for him was unbearable.

"Sansa," said Ned quietly, "you have to calm down. You're hyperventilating."

She went limp against him, panting, tears pouring down her face.

"He didn't deserve any of what happened to him," she whispered when she could talk again. "He only deserves the best of everything, that's why I wanted this surgery, so he wouldn't get tired of coping with my blindness, so I could be good enough for him—"

A harsh gasp came from the doorway.


	14. Chapter 14

Sansa jerked back from Ned to see the live version of that same terribly-injured face. Sandor had draped his hair over most of the scars, while he'd been gone, and the one eye she could see was wide and wary. The fact that he was hiding himself from her was like a punch to the solar plexus. She honestly didn't know what she'd do, if he couldn't get past this.

Die, maybe.

"Sandor—" she began.

"Don't pity me," he rasped, but he wasn't angry. There was no bite to his words. It was… a plea, Sansa realized. He was _begging_ her not to pity him. Her heart somehow broke a little more.

"I don't pity you," she told him. "I never did. This isn't— this wasn't—" She waved her arms around, trying to indicate her meltdown. "This was me freaking out at the idea that the person I love more than anything in this world has been hurt so badly. And that I can't do anything to change it. I can't fix it, or make it go away."

She gulped past the aching knot in her throat. "You've been hurt so _much_ , Sandor, and all I can do is… accept it. And it's really hard. It hurts a lot. I feel so powerless, like I've failed to protect you, somehow."

He blinked slowly. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I know it doesn't!" she wailed. "It's completely ridiculous."

Sandor barked out a laugh, just one short, harsh burst of noise that sounded more like a sob. Sansa didn't know what was going through his head, at that moment, just that he was too far away, so she held out her arms to him.

He was by her side in a blink, plucking her off the bed, blankets and all, and into his arms. He turned and dropped onto the bed himself, cradling Sansa in his lap so tightly she could scarcely breathe. But she didn't care. He was there with her, he wasn't running away. She chanced a look from the corner of her eye and saw that her parents had left the room, and taken the laptop with them. She and Sandor were completely alone.

"You're such a good man," she whispered. "A dream come true, really— you work hard, you're honest, you're kind and sweet and loving, you're gorgeous—"

He snorted.

"You _are_ ," she insisted, poking a pointy finger into his beefy pectoral. "Your body is the kind women drool over. You could make a fortune as a Chippendale dancer. If we ever run into financial problems, you can shake your booty and make us millionaires."

"Fuck's sake," Sandor mumbled, trying for irritable but mostly just sounding embarrassed.

"I just wanted to be good enough for you," Sansa continued. "I've been so scared that taking care of a blind girl would be too much work, and you'd eventually come to resent me for it."

"You were _always_ good enough for me," he told her hoarsely. "More than good enough… so much better. So out of my league. There's not a day I don't wake up terrified you'll come to your senses and leave me."

"I'll never leave you," she said passionately, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I'd give anything to take it from you... the scars, the pain..."

They clutched each other for long, silent moments. She buried her face against his throat and inhaled his familiar smell, his beard comfortingly scratchy against her skin.

"I want to kill anyone who ever treated you badly because of it," she muttered to his shoulder.

He gave a short laugh.

"It would be a full-time job, little bird," he rasped, somehow finding a shred of humor deep within. "Too many of them. Fuckers aren't worth your attention, anyway."

"No," she agreed with a sniffle, "because we've got too much to do."

"We do?"

She nodded against his neck. "We have to go home and get me through radiation. And then we have to plan the wedding, and get married. And then you have to get me pregnant, and then we'll have a baby."

He shifted, adjusting her placement in his lap, and she realized with a secret smile that it was because she was squashing his erection under her butt cheek. Even when she hadn't had a proper bath in a week, and probably had morning breath that could knock over a herd of moose, he still wanted her. She hummed happily, feeling heat streak through her belly, and wished she were stronger so they could take advantage of their solitude. They hadn't gone more than two or three days without sex since they'd gotten together, and this had been over a week without. Sansa marveled, once more, about the fact that she'd been in a coma for eight days.

"Sounds like a lot of work, little bird."

"I'll be sure to make it worth your while."

Now it was his turn to hum, and when he adjusted her again, it was more of a rubbing of himself against her, but he stopped all too soon, with a rueful sigh.

"You're too weak for… anything. And will be for a while." Still, he covered one of her breasts with his big warm hand, squeezing gently. It felt to Sansa more like he was doing it for comfort, to reassure himself she really was there with him, than anything else. "But it's okay. I can wait."

"I doubt I can," she muttered, making him laugh.

Another blissful, relieved few minutes were spent just holding each other. Slowly, Sandor's rigid body relaxed, and with a sigh, he flopped back against the pillows, draping Sansa over him like a living duvet cover.

"Sandor," she said after a moment, "I'm going to have to get a good look at you eventually."

"I know," he said eventually. Reluctantly. "I just wanted to put it off as long as possible."

"I don't think it can wait any more," said Sansa. "Let's get it over with."

He took a deep breath, his massive chest swelling with the effort, and let it out as he sat up once more, shifting them both so she could face him. Sansa realized that he was trembling, and took his big hands in hers, kissing their palms.

"Ready?" she asked.

"No."

"I'm doing it anyway."

"…fine."

She leaned back and looked at him close-up for the first time.

It was even more appalling in person than it had been in the photos, and knowing that the pitted, ridged texture and inhuman coloring— gray and black mingling with red- was due to his flesh having _melted_ made it all the more grotesque. She tried desperately to hold back her tears, but they overflowed anyway.

"Oh, my love," she whispered. Sansa took his beloved face in her hands and drew it near enough for their noses to brush. She looked into his eyes, watched as his pupils expanded. She saw misery in their depths, but also hope, mingling with his strength and kindness and a truly humbling amount of adoration.

"There you are." She smiled at him, willing all her love to shine at him from her face, and for him to see she meant what she was saying. "In there, that's Sandor. Not whatever happened outside. And you're so beautiful, love."

He embraced her, his arms circling her convulsively as he buried his face— the scarred side— against her neck. After a moment, she felt the wetness of tears against her skin. She murmured soothingly, nonsense words, really, and combed her fingers through his long hair until he calmed.

When Sandor pulled back, Sansa fussed with her Johnny coat, tangled around her legs, instead of watching him, so he could wipe his tears on his sleeve without her observing him. When she looked back at him, his face was dry but his eyes were red. She pretended not to notice.

"So how fast do you think we can convince the doctor to discharge me?" she asked perkily. "I want to get home and start moving on those important plans we discussed. Especially that last one."

Sandor settled back into the mound of pillows and drew her back into his lap. "The baby-making, huh? But you still have at least two months left on that birth control injection."

"I figured we could practice," she replied easily, "so when it's time, we'll know just what to do."

"Practice does make perfect," Sandor agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "And there are still a few positions we haven't tried yet."

"And you know what a stickler I am for high quality," Sansa continued, unable to stop the spread of a goofy smile. "I know it'll be tough, but try to persevere."

"Work, work, work," he said, a realistic tone of exasperation and resignation to his voice. _So_ realistic, in fact, that Sansa thought he needed to be punished, a little, and gave him a pinch on the leg. She felt annoyingly weak and tired, and it was still really strange that everything in her vision was tinged a little blue. But the fact that she could even say something was 'in her vision' was incredible. If she saw everything bluish for the rest of her life, she'd take it.

"I think I need a nap." She dropped her head against Sandor's shoulder and curled into him. He pulled her granny's afghan over her and settled in.

But she didn't sleep, just lay there, calm and quiet, breathing in his scent and feeling the scritchiness of his bearded chin against her forehead. She'd been in a coma for a week, and she wondered what had changed in that time. It must have been tense and frightening, and she felt bad that she'd made Sandor and her parents go through it. Knowing how crazy they could drive him, Sansa also marveled that he hadn't ended up killing them over the past few days.

It wasn't long before they returned, however.

"How is she?" whispered Catelyn.

"Tired after all the emotional shit." Sandor tried to be quiet, but even if she had been asleep, the deep rumble under her cheek would have woken her. The dear man had no idea, though, and she just kept laying there silently.

"Are you two… okay?" her father ventured. She opened her eyes a sliver and through her eyelashes saw Ned put his hand on Sandor's shoulder.

 _Aw,_ she thought happily, _they were getting along so well that Sandor was letting someone else touch him._

"We're good," Sandor murmured. "Nothing to worry about."

And then, to her shock, her mom took Sandor's free hand in both of her own and gave it a squeeze.

"I'm so glad," Catelyn said, her voice choked with tears. "We were worried, when you left like that. Don't you ever do that again. You should know by now that we all love you no matter what."

"Yeah, I know," Sandor muttered.

It took everything she had to keep from twitching in surprise. What the hell had happened while she was in that coma? Since when were her mother and Sandor openly affectionate? To _each other?_

"We talk things out in this family, buster," her mother scolded, continuing to blow Sansa's mind.

"You know you're only two years older than my sister, right?" he asked grumpily.

"I'm _her_ mother, so if you're marrying her, I'm _your_ mother, too," was Catelyn's complacent response.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, but there was no edge to it. Sansa could pretend unconsciousness no longer.

"You guys are freaking me out," she mumbled sleepily. "How are you best buds now?"

"Abject terror at losing you made us bond," quipped Ned. She stared up at him, and while his words were playful, his face was serious. They'd been through a lot, that week.

"I'm sorry," she told them all. "Do they have any idea why it happened?"

"Your body just needed to shut down in order to heal. That's Dr. H'ghar's theory, at least," said Catelyn.

"He told us, just now, that if you feel fine tomorrow and there are no complications, we can go home the day after," said Ned. "He has arranged radiation to start in Manchester the day after that. You also have physical therapy, to strengthen your ocular muscles, and in Boston, there might be some treatments possible to calibrate your sense of color."

"Sounds good." Sansa yawned and rubbed her cheek against Sandor's shoulder. "I'm… I'm really sorry I made you all go through this. But you don't know what it means to me, to be able to see everyone again. And to not feel so much _guilt_ , at needing everyone to do so much for me. Needing one of you stop in the middle of your day to drive me places was making me crazy!"

"We didn't mind," Sandor told her, stroking a big warm hand down her arm.

"I know you didn't _mind_ , but it was still inconvenient. And I don't ever want to be inconvenient to you. Any of you."

"Worth it," he rumbled in her ear.

"Worth it." Ned, with a grin.

"Worth it." Catelyn, smiling even as she sniffled once more, reaching out to squeeze Sansa's hand.

Sansa buried her face against Sandor's broad chest, trying not to cry, feeling like she was glowing with how much she loved them all. The future was looking bright, and she could barely wait to get started on it.


End file.
